E<4wir»  Swi^^t  JBalch 


With  the  compliments  of  the  author 


THE  NORTH  POLE 

AND 

BRADLEY    LAND 


OTHER  WORKS  BY  THE  AUTHOR. 


Mountain  Exploration Bull.  Geog.  Club  of  Phila.,  1893. 

The  Highest  Mountain  Ascent,  etc Pop.  Sci.  Mon.,  1895. 

Ascents  near  Saas Appalachia,  1896. 

Ice  Cave  Hunting  in  Central  Europe "  1897. 

Reminiscences  of  Tyrol "  1898. 

High  Mountain  Ascents "  1909. 

Ice  Caves  and  the  Causes  of  Subterranean  Ice. . .  .J.  Franklin  Ins.,  1897. 

Subterranean  Ice  Deposits  in  America "  1899. 

Antarctica:  A  History  of  Antarctic  Discovery "  1901. 

Roman  and  Prehistoric  Remains  in  Central  Gtermany  "  1903. 

Antarctica  Addenda "  1904. 

Savage  and  Civilized  Dress "  1904. 

Antarctic  Exploration Sci.  Am.  Sup.,  1902. 

Termination  Land Nat.  Geog.  Mag.,  1904. 

Arctic  Expeditions  sent  from  the  American  Colonies. 

Penn.  Mag.  H.  &  B.,  1907. 

Art  in  America  before  the  Revolution Soc.  Col.  Wars,  1908. 

Art  and  Ethnology Proc.  Am.  Phil.  Soc,  1907. 

Why  America  should  Re-explore  Wilkes  Land    "       "       "       "    1909. 

Crocker  Land Bull.  Am.  Geog.  Soc,  1907. 

Stonington  Antarctic  Explorers "      "        "        "    1909. 

Palmer  Land "       "         "         "     1911. 

Hudson  Land "       "         "        "     1911. 

Antarctic  Names "      "        "        "    1912. 

etc. 


The  North  Pole 

and 

Bradley    Land 


BY 

EDWIN  SWIFT  BALCH 


Author  of 

Glacieres  or  Freezing  Caverns,  1900 

Antarctica,  1902 

Comparative  Art,  1906 


PHILADELPHIA 

CAMPION  AND  COMPANY 

1913 


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Copyright,  1913,  by 
EDWIN  SWIFT  BALCH 


PRE8B   OF 

ALLEN.  LANE  &  SCOTT 

PHILADELPHIA 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

I.    Theories  of  Mr.  Harris  and  Dr.  Nansen. 

Journeys  of  Dr.  Cook  and  Admiral  Peary.  7 

II.    Travelers  who   were  first   doubted,  and 

AFTERWARDS    VINDICATED 15 

III.  Astronomical  observations.    Mount  McKin- 

LEY.      Copenhagen    verdict.      Compara- 
tive METHOD   IMPERATIVE    IN  INVESTIGATING 

travelers'   reports 26 

IV.  Records  of  Dr.  Cook  and  Admiral  Peary.  41 
V.    Bradley  Land 53 

VI.    Land-Ices  in  the  Arctic  Ocean 59 

VII.    The  North  Pole 63 

VIII.    Animals  on  the  Arctic  Ocean  Ice 73 

IX.    The  Future  op  Arctic  Exploration 78 

Map 83 

Index 85 


369.^45 


THE  NORTH  POLE  AND  BRADLEY  LAND. 


I. 

THEORIES    OF    MR.    HARRIS    AND    DR.    NANSEN. 
JOURNEYS  OF  DR.  COOK  AND  ADMIRAL  PEARY. 

Some  years  after  the  successful  drift  of  the  Fram 
across  the  Eastern  Arctic  ocean,  Mr.  R.  A.  Harris, 
of  the  United  States  Coast  and  Geodetic  Survey, 
read  before  the  Philosophical  Society  of  Washing- 
ton, on  April  9,  1904,  an  important  paper,^  to 
advocate  a  theory  that  there  was  land  in  the  then 
still  unknown  Arctic.  He  based  his  theory  on 
reports  of  observations  about  ice,  tides,  and  cur- 
rents; on  the  drifting  of  driftwood;  on  the  re- 
ported sighting  of  land  north  of  Alaska  by  the 
American  whaling  captain  Keenan;  on  the  tradi- 
tions and  legends  of  the  Eskimo  of  lands  in  the 
Arctic;  on  the  drifts  of  the  Jeannette  and  the 
Fram  and  the  observations  of  their  commanders; 
and  on  the  observations  of  numerous  other  ex- 
plorers, among  them  Collinson,  Osborn,  McClure, 
Richardson,    Sverdrup,    and    Peary.     Mr.    Harris 

^National  Geographic  Magazine,  Vol.  XV.,  June  1904,  pages 
255-261.  Repeated  more  at  length  as  "Evidences  of  land  near 
the  North  Pole,"  m  Report  Eighth  International  Geographic 
Congress,  Washington,  1905,  pages  397-406. 


8  THE    NORTH    POLE 

thought  that  "the  tides  clearly  prove  that  there  can 
be  no  large  and  deep  polar  basin,  extending  from 
Spitzbergen  and  Franz  Josef  Land  to  Alaska"  and 
from  the  various  sources  mentioned  he  reasoned 
out  that  there  must  be  a  big  mass  of  land,  some  of 
it  in  the  eastern  but  the  majority  in  the  western 
hemisphere,  extending  between  the  Siberian  islands, 
Banks   Land,   Grant  Land    and  the  North  Pole. 

Three  years  after  Mr.  Harris  had  broached  his 
theory  about  lands  in  the  unknown  Arctic,  Dr. 
Fridtjof  Nansen^  published  a  paper  expounding 
the  theory,  that  the  then  unknown  Arctic  is 
nearly  all,  if  not  all,  ocean.  Dr.  Nansen  based 
his  argument  largely  on  the  movements  of  the 
sea  currents  and  the  drift  of  the  ice,  on  sound- 
ings on  the  continental  shelf  of  Siberia,  on  the 
nature  of  the  ice  in  different  parts  of  the  Arctic 
ocean,  on  the  driftwood  found  on  the  various 
Arctic  coasts,  on  the  temperatures  of  the  ocean, 
on  the  tides,  on  meteorology,  on  migratory  birds, 
and  on  Eskimo  legends.  He  published  with  his 
article  a  map  which  delineates  the  Central  Arctic 
wholly  as  an  ocean. 

These  two  theories,  propounded  by  two  scientific 
men  like  Harris  and  Nansen,  are  of  more  than  pass- 
ing interest.     The  region  they  theorized  about  was, 


^"On  North  Pole  Problems:"    The  Geographical  Journal, 
1907,  Vol.  XXX.,  pages  469-487  and  585-601. 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  9 

at  the  time  Mr.  Harris  wrote,  entirely  unknown;  at 
the  time  Dr.  Nansen  wrote,  merely  scratched  with 
fresh  information.  So  much  of  this  region  is  still 
unknown  that  these  theories  continue  to  present 
to-day  the  best  conclusions  which,  in  the  lack  of 
exact  knowledge,  have  been  reasoned  out  about 
much  of  this  unknown  region.  They  are  good  work- 
ing hypotheses.  But,  and  it  is  a  very  large  but,  the 
conclusions  of  Mr.  Harris  and  the  conclusions  of 
Dr.  Nansen  are  almost  diametrically  the  opposites 
of  each  other.  Reasoning  from  almost  identical 
premises,  the  two  scientists  arrive  at  almost  exactly 
contrary  views.  This  shows  that  any  theory  about 
the  unknown  Polar  regions  is  most  uncertain, 
and  that  altho  a  theory  may  be  used  tempor- 
arily as  a  working  hypothesis,  it  requires  the 
proof  of  exploration  to  remove  it  much  beyond 
the  condition  of  a  guess. 

Since  Mr.  Harris  expounded  his  views  in  1904, 
three  expeditions  to  the  Central  Arctic  have  already 
shed  some  light  on  Harris'  and  Nansen's  theories. 
These  are  Rear  Admiral  Robert  E.  Peary's  journey 
of  1906;  Dr.  Frederick  A.  Cook's  journey  of  1908; 
and  Rear  Admiral  Peary's  journey  of  1909.  All 
our  knowledge  of  the  Arctic  regions,  between  the 
tidal  crack  of  the  ice  off  Grant  Land  and  Axel 
Heiberg  Land  on  the  western  side,  and  the  tracks 
of  De  Long,  Nansen,  and  the  Duke  of  the  Abruzzi 
on  the  eastern  side,  rests  on  these  three  journeys. 


10  THE   NORTH   POLE 

Of  the  three  journeys  of  Peary,  Cook,  and  Peary, 
the  first  was  made  in  1906.  According  to  Admiral 
Peary's  statements,^  starting  from  Grant  Land,  he 
went  northwards,  as  shown  on  his  chart,  to  about 
85°  15'  N.-74°  W.;  thence  traveled  or  was  drifted 
to  87°  6'  N.,  by  about  50°  W.;  and  thence 
returned  to  North  Greenland.  Peary  did  not 
discover  any  lands  nor  make  any  soundings 
suggesting  lands  north  of  83°  20'  N.  Somewhere 
near  86°  N.-60°  W.,  however,  latitude  and  lon- 
gitude not  given,  on  his  up  journey,  Peary 
^  traversed  several  large  level  old  floes,  which  my 
Eskimos  at  once  remarked,  looked  as  if  they  did  not 
move  even  in  summer.  *  *  *  *  Several  berg- 
like pieces  of  ice  discoloured  with  sand  were  noted 
during  the  march,  my  Eskimos  saying  that  these 
looked  as  if  we  were  near  land."^  This  phe- 
nomenon, for  the  sake  of  brevity,  will  be  referred 
to  in  this  article  as  Peary-Land-Ice.  The  same 
year,  on  June  24,  from  one  of  the  peaks  of  Grant 
Land,  Peary  sighted  thru  his  glasses  "the 
faint  white  summits  of  a  distant  land,"  and  again, 
on  June  28,  with  glasses  he  '^  could  make  out, 
apparently  a  little  more  distinctly,  the  snow-clad 
summits  of  the  distant  land  in  the  northwest, 
above  the  horizon."^      This  land  Peary  marks  on 

^Nearest  the  Pole,  1907. 
^Nearest  the  Pole,  page  131. 
^Nearest  the  Pole,  pages  202,  207. 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  11 

his  chart,  with  the  name  of  Crocker  Land,  as 
stretching  in  a  curved  line  between  about  82° 
30'  N.-83°  20'  N.,  and  106°  W.-103°  W.  That 
Peary  had  no  suspicion  whatever  of  the  existence 
of  any  land  north  of  83°  20'  N.,  is  also  shown  by 
his  map^  on  which  the  Big  Lead — which  bears 
much  the  same  relation  to  the  Polar  pack  that 
a  bergschrund  does  to  a  couloir  on  a  mountain 
side — is  marked  as  extending  east  and  west,  due 
north  of  Crocker  Land,  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
eighty-fourth  parallel,  up  to  110°  W. 

Admiral  Peary,  by  his  discovery  in  1906  of 
Crocker  Land,  fired  the  opening  gun  in  favor  of 
Harris'  theory  before  Nansen  even  published  his 
hypothesis.  As  the  writer  of  this  monograph 
pointed  out  at  that  time,  the  discovery  of  Crocker 
Land  by  Peary  proved  that  Harris  was  to  some 
extent  right,  and  that  "the  first  traveler  who 
explores  Crocker  Land  will,  perhaps,  completely 
change  all  present  notions  on  the  unknown  Arc- 
tic."^ Peary's  observations  somewhere  near  86° 
N.-60°  W.,  of  Peary-Land-Ice,  floes  which  looked 
as  if  they  did  not  move  even  in  summer  and  of 
berg-like  pieces  of  ice  discolored  with  sand,  like- 
wise suggest  a  possible  shoal  and  also  point  to  the 
accuracy   of  Harris'  theory. 

^Nearest  the  Pole. 

''Bulletin   American   Geographical   Society,  Vol.   XXXIX., 
1907,  pages  739,  740. 


12  THE    NORTH    POLE 

Dr.  Cook's  journey  was  made  in  1908.  Accord- 
ing to  his  own  statements,^  Dr.  Cook  left  Axel 
Heiberg  Land  on  March  18,  and  steered  an  al- 
most straight  course  northward  along  the  meridian 
of  95°  W.  He  discovered  first  Bradley  Land  in  84° 
20'  N.-85°  11'  N.  After  this,  between  87°-88°  N., 
he  crossed  some  glacial  land  ice,  which,  for  the 
sake  of  brevity,  will  be  referred  to  in  this  essay  as 
Cook-Land-Ice.  Finally  on  April  21,  1908,  Cook 
arrived  at  the  North  Pole.  Thence  he  returned 
south,  keeping  near  to  the  meridian  of  100°  W., 
and  reached  Amund  Rignes  Land  on  June  14, 
1908.  Over  the  Arctic  pack.  Cook's  marches 
averaged  between  10  and  20  miles  a  day;  on  five 
days  only  did  he  make  longer  marches,  respectively 
of  21,  21,  22,  23,  and  29  miles.  After  wintering 
west  of  Baffin  Bay,  he  returned  in  the  early  sum- 
mer of  1909  to  South  Greenland,  and  thence,  about 
the  middle  of  August,  1909,  he  sailed  for  Europe. 
Cook's  first  statement  that  he  had  attained  the 
North  Pole  on  April  21,  1908,  was  announced  to 
the  world  on  September  1,  1909,  in  a  cablegram 
from  Lerwick,  Shetland  Islands,  to  Copenhagen, 
and  may  be  seen  in  the  evening  newspapers  of 
that  date.  Cook  was  then  coming  back  from 
South   Greenland  on   the  little   Danish   passenger 

^New  York  Herald,  2  September,  1909.  The  Conquest  of 
the  Pole:  New  York  Herald,  September  and  October,  1909. 
My  Attainment  of  the  Pole,  1911. 


AND   BRADLEY  LAND.  13 

steamer  and  mail  boat  Hans  Egede.  As  this  ship 
could  not  possibly  have  crossed  the  Atlantic  Ocean 
in  less  than  a  week,  it  makes  certain  the  fact  that 
Cook  left  South  Greenland  before  August  26,  1909. 
Admiral  Peary's  last  journey  was  made  in  1909. 
According  to  his  own  statements,®  Admiral  Peary 
started  from  Cape  Sheridan,  Grant  Land,  on 
March  1,  and  traveled  due  north  between  about 
75°  W.-80°  W.  Below  86°  N.,  Professor  Ross 
G.  Marvin  sounded  in  310  fathoms;  and  between 
87°  N.-88°  N.,  Peary  found  an  extremely  broken 
and  open  ice  pack.  He  arrived  at  the  North 
Pole  on  April  6,  1909.  He  left  the  North 
Pole  at  4  P.  M.  on  April  7,^°  and  on  April  9, 
camped  at  87°  47'  N."  Thus  he  made  133 
nautical  miles,  or  153  statute  miles,  in  two 
days  and  a  few  more  hours.  These  marches  of 
Peary  are  the  records  for  the  Polar  regions,  and 
make  the  marches  of  Cook  seem  like  child's  play. 
From  the  North  Pole  Peary  returned  in  his  up 
tracks  the  whole  way  to  Grant  Land,  which  he 
reached  on  April  23.  On  this  journey,  Peary  did 
not  see  any  lands  north  of  Grant  Land.  Peary 
cleared  from  Cape  York,  North  Greenland,  on 
August  26,  1909,^^  and  his  first  statement  that  he 

^The  North  Pole,  1910. 
^°T/ie  North  Pole,  page  302. 
"T/ie  North  Pole,  page  306. 
^""The  North  PqU,  page  334. 


14  THE    NORTH    POLE 

had  attained  the  North  Pole  on  April  7,  1909,  was 
given  to  the  world  in  four  cablegrams  from  Indian 
Head,  Labrador,  dated  September  6,  1909,  six  days 
after  Cook's  achievement  had  been  announced. 
Thanks  to  these  three  journeys,  we  already  have 
a  partial  solution  of  the  problem  in  physical  geog- 
raphy propounded  theoretically  by  Harris  and 
Nansen  as  to  the  existence  or  non-existence  of 
lands  in  the  unknown  Arctic.  But,  as  a  result  of 
these  journeys  also,  and  thru  the  labors  and  the 
observations  of  the  two  distinguished  explorers, 
Cook  and  Peary,  several  other  Arctic  problems 
have  been  presented  to  the  scientific  world; 
problems  in  physical  geography,  problems  in 
glaciology,  problems  in  zoology.  Inseparably  con- 
nected with  these  three  journeys  also,  there  is 
a  question  in  historical  geography  of  the  highest 
interest,  namely,  who  is  the  discoverer  of  the  North 
Pole.  Any  opinion  as  to  who  discovered  the 
North  Pole  must  be  formed  at  present  from  a 
comparison  of  the  results  obtained  in  the  unknown 
on  these  three  journeys:  there  is  nothing  else  to 
turn  to.  The  final  verdict  on  all  these  questions, 
whether  there  is  land  or  sea  in  the  unknown 
Arctic,  whether  land  ice  is  formed  in  some  still 
unsuspected  way,  whether  animals  habitually  roam 
far  away  from  land  over  the  Arctic  ice,  and  above 
all,  the  verification  of  the  discovery  of  the  North 
Pole,  depends  on  future  exploration. 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  15 


II. 

TRAVELERS    WHO    WERE    FIRST    DOUBTED,    AND 
AFTERWARDS  VINDICATED. 

It  is  regrettable  that  a  controversy  should  have 
arisen  in  regard  to  the  discovery  of  the  North 
Pole,  but  since  there  is  a  difference  of  opinion  in 
regard  to  it,  historical  geographers  are  in  duty 
bound  to  sift  the  facts  down  to  bed  rock.  For  the 
discovery  of  the  North  Pole  is  an  event  of  the  first 
magnitude  in  the  history  of  geographical  explora- 
tion and  geographers  must  know  who  discovered  it. 

That  there  should  be  doubt  as  to  whether  the 
North  Pole  has  been  reached,  and  if  so,  as  to  who 
reached  it  first,  is  quite  in  accord  with  the  history 
of  geographical  exploration.  From  time  imme- 
morial, travelers  have  been  called  liars.  The  num- 
ber of  those  who  have  been  told  that  they  were 
fakirs  and  had  handed  a  gold  brick  to  the  public, 
or  the  equivalent  of  such  a  statement,  and  whose 
discoveries  nevertheless  have  been  verified  in  due 
time,  is  legion. 

Basing  his  opinion  on  this  historical  truth,  and 
also  on  the  genuine  ring  of  Cook's  narrative,  the 
writer,^^    from   the   beginning   of   the   controversy, 

^^Philadelphia  Public  Ledger,  10  September,  1909.  New 
York  Evening  Post,  13  September,  1909.  Philadelphia  Even- 
ing Bulletin,  2  October,  1909. 


16  THE    NORTH    POLE 

has  insisted,  at  first  as  a  matter  of  belief,  that 
Cook,  in  due  time,  would  be  acknowledged  to  be 
the  discoverer  of  the  North  Pole.  Careful  study 
of  the  evidence  has  strengthened  the  writer's  con- 
victions, and  this  monograph  in  part  is  an  at- 
tempt to  present  the  facts  and  reasons  on  which 
these  convictions  are  based. 

Before,  however,  entering  on  a  discussion  of  the 
evidence,  it  may  be  well  to  give  a  certain  number 
of  examples  of  the  treatment  accorded  to  famous 
travelers  whose  discoveries  were  denied  at  first. 
And  this  should  make  it  clear  how  inaccurate  and 
valueless  any  preHminary  popular  or  even  scien- 
tific denial  of  the  claims  of  explorers  is  apt  to  be. 

Of  the  first  great  voyage  recorded,  the  circum- 
navigation of  Africa  by  Phenician  sailors,  its  chron- 
icler, Herodotus,  says:^*  ^'On  their  return,  they 
declared — I  for  my  part  do  not  believe  them,  but 
others  may — that  in  sailing  round  Libya,  they 
had  the  sun  upon  their  right  hand."  Herodotus 
thus  promptly  denied  the  statement  which  modern 
geographers  usually  consider  the  best  piece  of 
evidence  of  the  authenticity  of  the  voyage  of  the 
Phenicians.  It  seems  a  well-merited  retribution 
that  Herodotus  himself  was  severely  scored  about 
his  veracity  by  numerous  ancient  writers,  among 

^*  George  Rawlinson:  The  History  of  Herodotus,  Book  4, 
paragraph  42,  1859,  Vol.  III.,  page  35. 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  17 

them  Manetho,  Harpocration,  Josephus,  Laertius, 
Theopompus,  Lucian,  and  Cicero/^ 

Atlantis  deserves  a  place  among  travelers'  tales. 
Its  existence  doubted,  its  position  unknown,  At- 
lantis had  passed  into  myth  and  legend  as  the 
fabulous  invention  of  some  unveracious  traveler. 
Yet  it  turns  out  that  the  story  recorded  by  Plato 
was  a  fairly  accurate  account  of  Minoan  Crete.*® 

Marco  Polo,  greatest  of  medieval  travelers,  was 
generally  discredited.  His  account  of  the  riches 
of  the  Chinese  emperor  earned  him  the  nickname 
of  Messer  Milioni.  On  his  deathbed,  he  was 
begged  by  his  friends  to  retract  his  extraordinary 
stories.  As  late  as  A.  D.  1829,  a  German  writer, 
K.  D.  Hullmann,  seriously  wrote  of  Polo's  works 
as  "the  clumsily  compiled  contents  of  this  eccle- 
siastical fiction  disguised  as  a  Book  of  Travels."*^ 
But  fictitious  as  Polo's  statements  seemed  to  his 
contemporaries  and  for  centuries  after,  yet  little 
by  little  they  have  been  proved:  one  of  the  latest 
thru  the  rediscovery  on  the  Pamirs  of  the  huge- 
horned  sheep,  now  bearing  the  name  of  Ovis  Poll. 

Amerigo  Vespucci,  to  this  day,  remains  under 
a   cloud,   for  things  he   did  not  do.     Accused  of 

^^  George  Rawlinson:  The  History  of  Herodotus,  1858,  Vol. 
I.,  page  76,  Note. 

^^  James  Baikie:  The  Sea  Kings  of  Crete,  1910,  page  258. 

^^ Colonel  Henry  Yule:  The  Book  of  Ser  Marco  Polo,  1872, 
Vol.  I.,  page  CXXIX. 


18  /  THE    NORTH   POLE 

concocting  fictitious  narratives  of  imaginary  voy- 
ages, not  a  scintilla  of  evidence  against  him  has 
been  produced.  Accused  of  trying  to  rob  Colum- 
bus of  his  fame  by  attaching  his  own  name  to  the 
American  continent,  it  is  thoroly  established 
now  that  it  was  Waldseemiiller  and  his  St.  Die 
friends  who  christened  America,  a  name  which 
Amerigo  himself  may  never  have  heard  of.^* 

Fernao  Mendes  Pinto,  a  Portuguese  traveler  of 
the  sixteenth  century  in  India  and  Japan,  had  his 
name  parodied  into  Fernao,  Mentes?  Minto!  (Fer- 
dinand, do  you  lie?  I  do!);  and  Congreve,  in 
Love  for  Love,  wrote,  ''Mendez  Pinto  was  but  a 
type  of  thee,  thou  liar  of  the  first  magnitude." 
Nevertheless,  from  present-day  knowledge,  Pinto 
may  be  considered  a  careful  observer  and  truthful 
narrator.  ^^ 

Antarctic  voyagers  have  suffered  much  at  the 
hands  of  carping  critics.  Nathaniel  B.  Palmer, 
who,  as  far  as  the  records  show,  probably  first 
sighted  and  certainly  first  sailed  along  part  of  the 
mainland  of  Antarctica,  was  almost  forgotten,  even 
by  his  own  countrymen.  Robert  Johnson  has  been 
called  an  apocryphal  person  by  D'Urville  and 
Fricker.     Morrell's     voyages     have    been,     many 

^^The  First  Four  Voyages  of  Amerigo  Vespiicci,  B.  Quaritch, 
1893,  Preface. 

^' Edgar  Prestage:  Encyclopcedia  Britannica,  Eleventh 
Edition,  Article  "Pinto." 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  19 

times,  called  apocryphal.  James  Weddell's  voyage 
has  been  pronounced,  by  one  critic,  apocryphal. 
Wilkes  Land,  altho  accepted  from  the  time  of 
its  discovery  by  some  geographers,  has  often  had 
its  very  existence  denied  and  doubted.  Never- 
theless the  Australian  expedition  has  now  landed 
on  it  at  two  places  and  proved  that  Wilkes  Land 
is  located  exactly  where  Wilkes  placed  it.  Ad- 
miral Wilkes  was  accurate  and  truthful,  and  events 
show  that  those  of  us  who  insisted  on  his  veracity 
were  right.^*^ 

The  recent  scientific  Antarctic  explorers,  de 
Gerlache,  von  Drygalski,  Nordenskjold,  Bruce,  and 
Charcot,  have  widened  enormously,  as  far  as  the 
writer  can  judge,  our  geographical  knowledge  of  the 
continent  of  Antarctica.  Yet  only  a  short  while 
since  an  Ex-President  of  the  Royal  Geographical 
Society,  Sir  Clements  R.  Markham,  in  perhaps 
the  most  sweeping  denial  of  geographical  discovery 
ever  made,  said  :^^  ''Several  private  expeditions 
were  started,  Belgian,  German,  Swedish,  Scottish, 
French,  but  none  of  them  were  of  any  use  as 
regards  Antarctic  discovery."  And  among  the 
critics  of  some  Antarctic  explorers  none  has  been 
more  inaccurate  than  some  other    Antarctic    ex- 

^°  Edwin  Swift  Balch:  Antarctica:  Stonington  Antarctic  Ex- 
plorers: Antarctic  Names. 

^^The  Geographical  Journal,  1912,  Vol.  XXXIX.,  pages 
575-580.  '  • 


20  THE    NORTH    POLE 

plorers:  a  striking  proof  of  the  fact  that  the 
greatest  discoverers  are  not  necessarily  the  best 
historians.^^'  ^^'  ^ 

James  Bruce,  who  crossed  Abyssinia  and  reached 
the  sources  of  the  Blue  Nile  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, was  so  calumniated  on  his  return,  that  he  left 
London  and  lived  the  rest  of  his  life  in  the  coun- 
try in  Scotland.  He  got  the  best,  however,  of  at 
least  one  of  his  critics,  who  remarked  one  day 
before  Bruce  and  some  other  persons,  ''that  it  was 
impossible  that  the  natives  of  Abyssinia  could  eat 
raw  meat.  Bruce  said  not  a  word;  but,  leaving 
the  room,  he  shortly  returned  from  the  kitchen 
with  a  piece  of  raw  beefsteak,  peppered  and  salted 
in  the  Abyssinian  fashion.  You  will  eat  that.  Sir, 
or  fight  me,  he  said."  The  critic,  not  relishing  a  pis- 
tol duel  with  a  dead  shot,  ate  the  raw  beefsteak.^^ 

When  the  missionaries.  Dr.  Krapf  and  Dr.  Reb- 
mann,  announced,  about  1849,  that  there  were 
snow-capped  mountains  in  Eastern  Africa,  they 
were  bitterly  assailed  by  many  European  geog- 
raphers who  asserted  that  they  had   mistaken  for 

'^'^  Voyage  of  Discovery  and  Research  in  the  Southern  and 
Antarctic  Regions,  1847.  Edwin  Swift  Balch:  Antarctica, 
pages   175-182. 

^^  The  Voyage  of  the  Discovery,  1905.  Edwin  Swift  Balch : 
Bulletin  American  Geographical  Society,  1906,  Vol.  XXXVIII., 
pages  30-32:  Science,  1911,  N.  S.  Vol.  XXXIIL,  pages  657-659. 

^^The  South  Pole,  1912,  London,  pages  9,  10. 

2^3.  F.  Head:  The  Life  of  Bruce,  1830,  page  531. 


AND   BRADLEY  LAND.  21 

snow,  calcareous  earth  or  rocks,  covering  the  sum- 
mits of  the  mountains  and  presenting  at  a  distance 
the  appearance  of  snow.  Altho  the  mission- 
aries reported  that  besides  seeing  the  snows  them- 
selves, the  natives  said  that  the  silver-like  stuff, 
when  brought  down  in  bottles  proved  to  be  noth- 
ing but  water,  and  that  many  who  ascended  the 
mountain  perished  from  the  extreme  cold,  or 
returned  with  frozen  extremities,  Drs.  Krapf  and 
Rebmann  were  wholly  disbelieved  in.  Mr.  Cooley, 
for  instance,  wrote  of  the  snow  as  "a  most  delight- 
ful mental  recognition  only,  not  supported  by  the 
evidence  of  the  senses"  and  sneered  at  the  narra- 
tive of  the  natives  as  to  the  frost-bitten  explorers 
as  a  fireside  tale.^^ 

Du  Chaillu,  discoverer  of  the  Gaboon  pygmies, 
and  hunter  of  the  gorilla,  told  the  present  writer 
himself  that  he  was  advised  by  his  publisher  'Ho 
stick  to  it"  and  that  he  could  not  at  first  under- 
stand what  was  meant.  He  found  out  when  his 
accounts  of  animals  and  natives  were  stigmatized 
as  false  and  his  first  journey  into  the  interior  pro- 
nounced a  fiction,  even  by  Heinrich  Barth,  and  to 
some  extent  by  Dr.  Petermann,  both  of  whom 
should  have  known  better.^^ 

^"J.  Lewis  Krapf:  Travels,  Researches  and  Missionary 
Labours,   1860,  pages  543,  544. 

^^Paul  B.  Du  Chaillu:  A  Journal  to  Ashango  Land^  1867, 
Preface. 


22  THE    NORTH    POLE 

Henry  M.  Stanley,  as  a  reward  for  finding  and 
relieving  Dr.  Livingstone,  was  welcomed  in  Eng- 
land with  the  information  that  it  was  Dr.  Living- 
stone who  had  discovered  and  relieved  Mr.  Stan- 
ley, who  was  nearly  destitute,  whilst  Dr.  Living- 
stone was  in  clover.  And  when  Stanley  read  an 
account  of  his  journey  before  the  British  Associa- 
tion, the  Vice-President  said  to  the  meeting, 
''We  don't  want  sensational  stories,  we  want 
facts." '« 

Of  David  Livingstone,  greatest  of  African  trav- 
elers, and  who,  above  all  men,  even  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, put  an  end  to  slavery,  Henry  M.  Stanley 
records :^^  ''I  was  led  to  believe  that  Livingstone 
possessed  a  splenetic,  misanthropic  temper;  some 
have  said  that  he  is  garrulous,  that  he  is  demented; 
that  he  has  utterly  changed  from  the  David  Liv- 
ingstone whom  people  knew  as  the  reverend  mis- 
sionary; that  he  takes  no  notes  or  observations  but 
such  as  those  which  no  other  person  could  read 
but  himself;  and  it  was  reported,  before  I  pro- 
ceeded to  Central  Africa,  that  he  was  married  to 
an  African  princess." 

John  Colter,  a  member  of  the  Lewis  and  Clark 
expedition,  was  the  first  white  man  to  visit  the 

28 Henry  M.  Stanley:  How  I  Found  Livingstone,  1872, 
Chapter  XVIL 

2" Henry  M.  Stanley:  Bow  I  Found  Livingstone,  1872, 
Chapter  XII. 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  23 

geysers  of  the  Yellowstone.  For  many  years  there- 
after, the  region  he  described  and  which  was,  of 
course,  considered  fictitious,  was  called  derisively 
"Colter's  Hell."^« 

Civilized  peoples  are  not  the  only  ones  to  dis- 
believe travelers.  For  when  George  Catlin  tried 
to  explain  to  some  South  American  Indians  about 
hail,  snow,  and  the  hard  ice  of  frozen  rivers,  he 
was  scornfully  derided  by  the  old  doctor — the 
scientific  element — of  the  tribe,  nearly  had  a  fight, 
and  received  the  name  of  "Hard  Water." ^^ 

Of  the  two  men  who  independently  discovered 
the  meaning  of  stone  implements  and  their  im- 
portance in  the  history  of  man,  the  first,  the  Rev. 
J.  McEnery,  died  sixteen  years  after  his  discovery, 
with  his  discovery  unrecognized  and  his  papers 
refused  publication.  The  second,  Boucher  de 
Perthes,  was  ridiculed  for  more  than  ten  years, 
and  literally  forced  his  discovery  on  skeptical 
scientists.  ^^ 

Don  Marcelino  de  Sautuola,  in  November,  1879, 
at  the  cave  of  Altamira  in  northern  Spain,  made 
the  first  discovery  of  Pleistokene  wall  paintings. 
He  was  promptly  discredited  by  several  learned 
archeologists  who  proved,  to  their  own  and  every- 

^° Captain  H.  M.  Chittenden:  The  Yellowstone  National 
Park,  1895,  Chapter  III. 

^^Life  Amongst  the  Indians,   1861,  pages  257-259. 
^^W.  Boyd  Dawkins:  Cave  Hunting,  1874,  pages  14-17. 


24  THE    NORTH    POLE 

one  else's  satisfaction,  that  de  Sautuola  did  not 
know  what  he  was  talking  about.  De  Sautuola 
died  un vindicated  in  1888.  Nevertheless,  to-day- 
some  of  these  same  archeologists  rank  de  Sautuola 
at  the  very  top  as  one  of  the  great  archeological 
discoverers.^^ 

For  several  hundred  years,  seamen  reported 
sighting  gigantic  cuttle  fish  and  were  considered, 
in  return,  as  impudent  fabricators.  The  great 
squid,  caught  in  herring  nets  in  1874  off  the  coast 
of  Newfoundland,  with  a  body  7  feet  long  and 
arms  24  feet  long^^ — the  most  repulsive  looking 
brute  the  writer  ever  saw  on  exhibition — settled  as 
true  the  sailors'  supposedly  mendacious  yarns. 

The  latest  traveler  whose  experiences  have 
aroused  skepticism,  is  Major  P.  H.  Fawcett,  R.  A. 
He  has  stated  that  on  the  Abuna  River,  one  of 
the  headwaters  of  the  Amazon,  he  killed  in  1906 
an  anaconda  65  feet  long,  that  the  Brazilian 
Boundary  Commissioners  killed  one  85  feet 
long,  and  that  he  does  not  believe  these  are 
exceptional  in  size.^^  If  one  mentions  Major  Faw- 
cett's  statements,  the  usual  reply  is,  "What  brand  of 

^^Emile  Cartailhac  and  Henri  Breuil:  La  Caverne  d'Altamira, 
1906.  Joseph  D^chelette:  Manuel  d'archeologie  'prekistoriqae, 
celtique  et  gallo-romaine,  1908,  Vol.  I.,  Chapter  X. 

^*Encyclopcedia  Britannica,  Eleventh  Edition,  Article 
"Cuttle-fish." 

^^The  Geographical  Jmimal,  1910,  Vol.  XXXV.,  page  523. 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  26 

whisky  does  he  drink?"  The  writer  cannot  answer 
this  query,  but  possibly  Mr.  Algot  Lange  could, 
for,  in  July,  1910,  he  also  killed  one  of  these 
"sucurujus"   56  feet  in  length.^® 

Many  other  travelers  and  discoverers,  besides 
the  few  chosen  here  as  examples,  have  suffered 
from  a  doubting  world,  and,  in  the  fulness  of 
time,  have  been  vindicated.  What  has  happened  in 
the  past  will  doubtless  happen  again  in  the  future. 
Historical  precedent  points  to  historical  geogra- 
phers recognizing  Dr.  Cook  as  the  discoverer  of 
the  North  Pole,  with  Admiral  Peary  as  a  close 
second. 


36 


In  the  Amazon  Jungle,  1912. 


26  THE    NORTH    POLE 


III. 

ASTRONOMICAL  OBSERVATIONS.  MOUNT  McKIN- 
LEY.  COPENHAGEN  VERDICT.  COMPARATIVE 
METHOD  IMPERATIVE  IN  INVESTIGATING 
TRAVELERS'  REPORTS. 

Before  attempting  to  discuss  the  question  of 
the  discovery  of  the  North  Pole  itself,  it  seems 
well  to  call  the  readers'  attention  to  the  fact  that 
no  traveler  could  ever  make  sure  of  absolutely 
reaching  it.  To  the  mathematician,  the  North 
Pole  is  a  pin  point,  an  imaginary  *'Big  Nail." 
To  the  Arctic  explorer,  the  North  Pole  can  be  only 
a  locality.  No  sledge  traveler,  sitting  on  a  moving 
ice  floe  which  may  open  into  a  yawning  lead  at 
any  moment,  with  his  stomach  unfilled  by  a  piece  of 
nasty  pemmican,  with  his  toes  and  fingers  contorted 
and  his  eyelashes  freezing  together  from  the  cold, 
and  with  the  spring  sun  barely  rising  above  the 
horizon  amid  refractions  and  mirage,  can  possibly 
take  observations  accurately  enough  to  be  sure  of 
being  at  the  mathematical  North  Pole.  But  if  one 
considers  the  traveler's  North  Pole  as  a  locality, 
for  instance  like  Philadelphia  or  New  York  City, 
then  a  traveler  might  arrive  within  ten  miles  of  the 
scientific  North  Pole,  and  claim  truthfully  that  he 
had  reached  the  North  Pole,  just  as  a  traveler 
might  arrive  at  League  Island  or  Chestnut  Hill, 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  27 

or  at  the  Battery  or  Harlem  River,  and  correctly 
assert  that  he  had  been  at  Philadelphia  or  New 
York  City.  Nearer  than  that  no  one  will  ever 
approach  with  certainty  to  the  North  Pole,  unless, 
and  it  is  not  probable,  some  one  should  happen 
to  drift  across  it  in  a  ship,  in  the  middle  of  summer. 
That  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  for  travelers 
to  take  astronomical  observations  in  the  vicinity 
of  the  North  Pole,  and  that  when  taken  such 
observations  at  the  best  are  uncertain  and  unre- 
liable, is  well  explained  by  Admiral  Sir  Albert 
H.  Markham,  R.  N.,  a  member  of  the  Nares 
expedition,  who  held  for  some  years  the  record  for 
farthest  north.  He  says:^^  ''I  am  inclined  to  say 
that  when  a  high  latitude  has  been  reached  by  a 
traveller  *  *  *  *  there  are  only  two  observa- 
tions to  be  taken  that  are  of  any  real  importance 

*  *  *  *  These  are  for  latitude,  and  those 
for    ascertaining    the    variation    of    the    compass 

*  *  *  *  I  never  bothered  my  head  about 
taking  any  observations  for  determining  my  longi- 
tude, but  I  was  very  careful  to  check  my  course 
by  constant  observations  for  the  variation  of  the 
compass.  *  *  *  *  ^he  only  other  obser- 
vations   that    I    took    were    those    for    latitude 

*  *  *  *  The  taking  of  these  apparently  simple 
observations  was  not  quite  so  easy  as  might  be 

^^The    Geographical    Journal,   1910,   Vol.  XXXV.,   pages 
303,  304. 


28  THE   NORTH    POLE 

imagined  *  *  *  *  r^j^^  difficulties  which 
were  experienced  by  me  in  the  neighborhood  of 
the  83rd  parallel,  and  during  the  months  of  May 
and  June,  would  be  very  materially  augmented 
in  a  higher  latitude,  and  would  be  doubly  intensi- 
fied at  an  earlier  period  of  the  year,  say  in  April." 

Dr.  William  Spiers  Bruce,  a  polar  explorer  in 
both  hemispheres  of  unimpeachable  accuracy  and 
reliability,  also  gives  precious  testimony  about 
the  dubious  value  of  polar  astronomical  obser- 
vations in  the  following  words :^^  ''It  should  be 
understood  that  the  getting  of  accurate  longitude 
and  even  latitude  in  these  regions,  where  it  is 
not  always  possible  to  get  a  solar  observation, 
and  at  a  time  of  the  year — in  continuous  day- 
light— when  it  is  impossible  to  obtain  any  stellar 
ones,  is  so  difficult,  that  it  is  scarcely  fair  to  say 
that  a  land  does  not  exist  because  it  is  not 
within  a  few  miles  of  the  assigned  position;  and 
in  the  matter  of  longitude  this  is  especially  the 
case,  for  it  is  just  as  likely  that  the  ship  which 
maintains  that  the  land  is  not  in  such  and  such 
a  position  may  itself  not  be  where  it  thinks  it  is." 

There  is  a  somewhat  curious  resemblance  in 
the  recorded  actions  of  the  claimants  for  the 
discovery  of  the  South  Pole  and  that  of  the 
North  Pole.    The  South  Pole  was   captured  by  a 

^^The  Scottish  Geographical  Magazine,  1912,  Vol.  XXVIII., 
page  315.  < 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  29 

''dark  horse."  Unheralded  and  uncheered,  Roald 
Amundsen  sHpped  down  to  the  Great  Ice  Barrier, 
and,  by  masterly  strategy  and  great  luck,  quietly 
took  away  the  prize  from  the  brave  and  gal- 
lant Captain  Scott  and  his  heroic  comrades.  In 
the  same  way,  with  the  cheapest  outfit,  but  with 
indomitable  grit,  Cook  started  unexpectedly,  and, 
as  far  as  the  writer  can  judge  from  the  geograph- 
ical evidence  now  accessible,  won  out  in  the 
attempt  to  reach  the  great  northern  goal  so  many 
competitors  have  striven  for  in  vain. 

In  stating  this  opinion,  the  writer  must  em- 
phasize the  fact  that  this  opinion  is  based  on  a 
comparison  of  the  geographical  facts  and  evidence 
presented  by  Cook  and  Peary:  it  is  not  a  matter 
of  faith.  Before  taking  up  this  evidence,  how- 
ever, it  is  necessary  to  refer  briefly  to  what  has 
been  done  already  in  the  matter. 

In  the  controversy  which  ensued  upon  the  return 
of  Cook  and  Peary,  the  geographical  evidence  was 
mainly  sidetracked  and  extraneous  points  insisted 
on.  Gradually  the  real  facts  of  the  case  were 
obscured  under  a  cloud  of  irrelevant  matter,  so 
that  finally  many  persons,  many  of  them  scien- 
tific men,  and  even  some  scientific  bodies,  accepted 
as  a  matter  of  belief  the  frantic  theory  that  Cook's 
journey  was  largely  fictitious.  If  this  theory  is 
examined,  I  think  it  will  be  found  to  be  based  on 
circumstances  which  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 


30  THE    NORTH    POLE 

case  or  which  are  relatively  unimportant  and  not 
on  the  vital  facts.  One  childish  reported  state- 
ment, seriously  presented  as  an  argument,  is  that  a 
couple  of  Eskimo  are  said  to  have  said  that  they 
went  only  two  sleeps  from  land.  Another  ridicu- 
lous argument  advanced  is  that  Cook  could  not 
have  made  the  daily  marches  he  said  he  did.  One 
entirely  irrelevant  circumstance,  much  insisted  on, 
is  whether  Mount  McKinley  was  or  was  not 
ascended  by  Cook.  An  extremely  quaint  disproof 
offered  is  that,  shortly  after  his  return  to  Amer- 
ica, Cook  went  to  Europe.  The  most  curious  cir- 
cumstance of  all,  however,  is  that  many  persons, 
even  scientific  men,  admit  that  they  have  never 
opened  Cook's  My  Attainment  of  the  Pole,  much 
less  examined  Cook's  The  Conquest  of  the  Pole,  yet 
do  not  hesitate  to  express  an  unfavorable  opinion 
of  Cook's  claims.  Imagine  any  judge  giving  his 
opinion  about  a  law  case,  without  hearing  and 
examining  the  evidence!  The  gist  of  the  matter 
has  nothing  to  do  with  remarks  by  Eskimo,  with 
Alaska,  nor  with  trips  to  Europe;  nor  can  the 
question  be  expounded  by  people  who  have  not 
looked  into  it. 

These  various  supposed  arguments  have  grad- 
ually dwindled  away  to  the  stock  repartee,  ''But 
how  about  Mount  McKinley?"  So  it  may  be 
as  well  to  say  a  word  about  that.  The  ascent  of 
Mount  McKinley  by  Cook  can  never  be  proved  or 


AND   BRADLEY  LAND.  31 

disproved,  unless  perchance  there  is  a  big  enough 
stoneman  on  top  to  withstand  Alaska  storms.  This 
is  the  case  also  with  thousands  of  other  ascents. 
The  leading  example  may  suffice  as  an  illustration. 
Mr.  W.  W.  Graham  claimed  to  have  reached  in 
1883  the  summit  of  Kabru,  24,015  feet,  in  the 
Sikhim  Himalaya.  A  violent  controversy  there- 
upon arose,  and  rivers  of  ink  flowed  in  favor  of  or 
against  the  reality  of  his  ascent.^^  Mr.  Graham's 
ascent  has  never  been  proved  or  disproved.  But 
the  subject  got  its  quietus  when  the  Duke  of 
the  Abruzzi  ascended  to  24,600  feet,  which  proved 
at  least  that  Mr.  Graham  could  have  ascended 
to  24,015  feet. 

The  difficulty  of  producing  proof  sometimes  of 
the  reality  of  an  ascent  may  perhaps  be  brought 
home  to  the  readers  of  this  monograph  by  asking 
them  how  they  could  prove,  except  by  a  mere 
statement,  any  ascent  they  have  themselves  made? 
Presumably  they  have  been  up  the  Rigi  or  Mount 
Washington,  or  more  probably  both.  But  what 
proof  could  they  offer  beyond  their  word? 

'"^^  Alpine  Journal,  February,  1884,  Vol.  XI.,  pages  402-407. 
Alpine  Journal,  August,  1884,  Vol.  XII.,  pages  25-52.  Alpine 
Journal,  August,  1884,  Vol.  XII.,  pages  52-60.  Alpine 
Journal,  November,  1884,  Vol.  XII.,  pages  99-108.  Popular 
Science  Monthly,  March,  1895,  Vol.  XL VI.,  pages  668-670. 
Bulletin  American  Geographical  Society,  1904,  Vol.  XXXVI., 
pages  107-109.  National  Geographic  Magazine,  December, 
1906.  Appalachia,  1907,  Vol.  XI.,  pages  257-259.  Ap- 
palachia,  1909,  Vol.  XII.,  pages  30-33. 


32  THE    NORTH    POLE 

The  opinions  of  inhabitants  of  Alaska  in  regard 
to  Cook's  ascent  of  Mount  McKinley,  whether 
for  or  against  its  reaUty,  are  not  of  the  shghtest 
value.  Mr.  Douglas  W.  Freshfield,  one  of  the 
greatest  of  living  mountaineers,  formerly  Secretary 
and  now  one  of  the  Vice-Presidents  of  the  Royal 
Geographical  Society,  may  be  cited  in  support  of 
this  statement  when  he  says:^°  "If  Himalayan 
travelers  really  think  the  opinion  of  natives  on  a 
mountain  ascent,  in  which  they  did  not  take  part, 
of  the  slightest  value,  their  own  opinion  is  thereby 
shown  to  be  worthless  *  *  *  *  jjj  ^j^g  Alps, 
much  more  in  the  Caucasus  and  other  wild  coun- 
tries, it  is  exceedingly  rare  for  an  ascent  made  by 
a  traveller  with  guides  strange  to  the  locality  to 
be  recognized  on  the  spot  either  at  the  time  or 
afterwards.  Lieutenant  Payer,  afterwards  of 
Arctic  fame — I  may  be  excused  the  personal 
recollection,  as  the  incident  stands  permanently 
recorded  in  'Petermann's  Mitteilungen ' — had  in 
1864  to  climb  the  Presanella  and  find  my  bottle 
in  order  to  get  the  first  hint  of  any  previous  ascent. 
The  numerous  ascents  of  Ararat  are  one  and  all 
disbelieved  in  by  dwellers  at  its  base.  But  the 
fact  is  notorious,  and  every  mountaineering  peri- 
odical teems  with  instances  of  it.  The  man  who 
can  quote  native  opinion,  as  it  is  quoted  by  Mr. 

*°r/ie  Alpine  Journal,  1884,  Vol.  XII.,  pages  100,  103. 


AND   BRADLEY  LAND.  33 

Graham^s  Indian  detractors,  shows  that  he  is 
utterly  ignorant  of  the  history  of  mountain 
exploration." 

A  photograph  stated  by  Cook  to  be  one  of  the 
summit  of  Mount  McKinley  has  been  claimed  to 
be  a  fake,  because  a  photograph  of  another  sum- 
mit looks  like  it.  It  happens,  however,  that  such 
resemblances  in  mountain  tops  and  their  photo- 
graphs occur,  as  the  following  quotation  proves. 
In  a  review  of  Mrs.  Main's  High  Life  and  Towers 
of  Silence,  the  reviewer  says:*^  "Several  of  the 
illustrations  in  the  book,  are,  we  gather,  from 
photographs  taken  by  the  accomplished  authoress, 
and  are  fairly  well  reproduced.  One  of  them  (the 
W.  peak  of  the  Two  Sisters  near  Pontresina  from 
the  E.  peak)  is  amusingly  like  Mr.  Donkin's  well- 
known  photograph  of  the  summit  of  the  Geant." 

Someone  will  undoubtedly  reach,  in  the  years 
to  come.  Mount  McKinley's  apex.  Even  this  will 
neither  prove  nor  disprove  Cook's  claim.  High 
mountain  tops  change.  The  rocks  are  split  by 
frost,  they  are  struck  by  lightning,  they  are  buried 
in  snow,  they  disappear  under  cornices,  they  are 
carried  away  in  avalanches.  Occasionally  moun- 
tains are  shaken  by  earthquakes,  an  occurrence 
which  has  just  been  reported  about  Mount  Mc- 
Kinley itself.*^     ''Tout  lasse,  tout  passe,  tout  casse,'' 

*'  The  Alpine  JmmaL,  1887,  Vol.  XIII.,  page  187. 
^  The  Geographical  Journal,  1912,  Vol.  XL.,  page  656. 


34  THE    NORTH    POLE 

and  nothing  more  so  than  mountain  tops.  ReHcs 
of  ascents  vanish,  buried  in  snow  or  blown  away 
by  the  raging  hurricanes.  The  writer  himself 
made,  in  1882,  the  second  ascent  of  the  Nadelhorn, 
4334  meters,^^  the  third  highest  summit  of  the 
Mischabel  range  near  Zermatt,  and  did  not  find 
a  vestige  of  anything  left  by  the  natives  of  Saas 
who  had  made  the  first  ascent  twenty-three  years 
before. 

That  the  next  climber  of  Mount  McKinley  will 
almost  surely  find  the  summit  different  from  what 
it  was  at  the  time  Cook  first  trod  upon  it,  can 
be  shown  by  the  following  statement  of  one  of  the 
most  famous  of  mountain  climbers,  Edward  Whym- 
per,  about  one  of  the  most  wonderful  of  mountains, 
the  Matterhorn,  which  he  was  the  first  to  climb,** 
when  he  says:  ''Questions  having  been  frequently 
put  to  me  respecting  the  immediate  summit  of  the 
Matterhorn,  and  difficulties  having  been  expressed 
as  to  the  recognition  of  the  two  views  given  upon 
pp.  279  and  281,  I  made  an  ascent  of  the  mountain 
in  1874  to  photograph  the  summit,  in  order  that 
I  might  see  what  changes  had  occurred  since  our 
visit  of  ten  years  before.  The  summits  of  all  high 
mountains  vary  from  time  to  time,  and  I  was  not 
surprised    to    find    that    the    Matterhorn    was    no 

^^Appalachia,  1896,  Vol.  VIII.,  pages  157-164. 
**  Edward  Whymper:  The  Ascent  of  the  Matterhorn,  London, 
John  Murray,  1880,  page  312. 


AND   BRADLEY  LAND.  35 

exception  to  the  general  rule.  It  was  altogether 
sharper  and  narrower  in  1874  than  1865.  Instead 
of  being  able  to  'run-about/  every  step  had  to  be 
painfully  cut  with  the  axe;  and  the  immediate 
summit,  instead  of  being  a  blunt  and  rounded 
eminence,  was  a  little  piled  up  cone  of  snow  which 
went  to  a  very  sharp  point." 

It  is  needless,  however,  to  enlarge  on  this  matter, 
for  the  most  important  fact  in  regard  to  the  ascent 
of  Mount  McKinley  is  that  it  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  question  of  the  discovery  of  the  North 
Pole,  any  more  than  it  has  with  the  Balkan  War 
or  the  growing  use  of  the  telephone.  It  is  abso- 
lutely irrelevant  as  evidence. 

Probably  the  one  occurrence  which  has  acted 
most  powerfully  on  scientific  opinion  is  what  may, 
for  brevity,  be  called  the  Copenhagen  verdict. 
Shortly  after  Cook's  return,  he  sent  copies  of  his 
note-books  and  later  his  original  note-books  to  the 
University  of  Copenhagen  and  these  were  examined 
by  a  special  committee  of  members  of  the  Uni- 
versity. The  writer  has  not  seen  any  report  pub- 
lished by  these  gentlemen  themselves,  but  the  gist 
of  it  is  as  follows:  ''The  copy  of  Dr.  Cook's  note- 
books which  had  been  sent  to  the  University  con- 
tained no  astronomical  records,  but  only  results, 
and  the  Committee  stated  that  there  were  no 
elucidatory  statements  which  might  have  rendered 
it    probable    that    astronomical    observations    had 


36  THE    NORTH    POLE 

really  been  taken.  Nor  were  any  practical  details 
of  the  journey  supplied  such  as  would  enable  the 
Committee  to  form  an  opinion  relative  to  Dr. 
Cook's  claim.  *  *  *  *  rpj^^y  ^^^  ^^isit  the 
evidence  submitted  contains  not  the  slightest  proof 
that  Dr.  Cook  reached  the  North  Pole,  nor,  they 
state,  is  there  any  decisive  proof  to  the  con- 
trary."*^ 

In  inquiring  into  the  Copenhagen  verdict,  it 
seems  well  to  inquire  also  into  the  proper  method 
for  arriving  at  conclusions  about  the  reports  of 
travelers.  And  this  method  is  the  comparative 
method.  To  arrive  at  any  certainty  about  the 
work  of  any  traveler,  his  reports  must  be  compared 
with  those  of  other  travelers.  It  is  the  geograph- 
ical evidence  obtained  by  later  travelers  which 
proves  or  disproves  the  geographical  evidence 
presented  by  the  first  explorer  of  any  region. 
The  man  who  breaks  into  the  unknown  may  say 
what  he  chooses  and  present  such  astronomical 
observations  as  he  sees  fit,  but  his  proof  rests  on 
his  word.  But  if  the  next  traveler  corroborates 
the  discoverer,  instantly  the  first  man's  statements 
are  immeasurably  strengthened. 

To  solve  such  a  problem  as  that  of  who  dis- 
covered the  North  Pole  this  comparative  method 
seems  to  the  writer  the  only  one  available.     It  is 

*^The  Geographical  Journal,  1910,  Vol.  XXXV.,  pages 
200,  201. 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  37 

not  a  matter  of  belief,  it  is  a  matter  of  compari- 
son and  reasoning.  It  is  not  the  evidence  which 
Cook  produces  which,  in  itself  alone,  could  prove 
Cook's  claims.  It  is  the  geographical  evidence 
offered  by  both  Cook  and  Peary,  which,  when 
carefully  compared,  affords,  in  the  writer's  judg- 
ment, the  only  means  of  arriving  at  a  conclusion. 
It  is  Peary's  statements  and  observations  which 
prove,  as  far  as  can  be  proved  at  present.  Cook's 
statements.  That  such  is  the  case,  is  in  strict 
accord  with  geographical  precedent.  All  great 
explorers  who  break  into  the  absolute  unknown, 
are  confirmed  or  refuted  by  succeeding  travelers. 
Marco  Polo  was  confirmed  by  many  other  trav- 
elers. Wilkes  was  confirmed  by  von  Drygalski, 
Davis  and  Mawson.  Du  Chaillu  was  confirmed  by 
Schweinfurth,  Stanley  and  Donaldson  Smith.  Cook's 
statements  will  take  the  usual  course:  endorsed 
already  thru  Peary's  statements,  they  will  be 
strengthened  or  weakened  by  the  next  travelers, 
perhaps  Amundsen  and  MacMillan,  who  may  pene- 
trate the  Western  Arctic  north  and  northwest  of 
Grant  Land. 

It  is  perhaps  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  when, 
on  the  return  of  Cook  and  Peary,  proofs  were  called 
for,  no  one  thought  at  first  of  turning  to  the  com- 
parative method.  Neither  the  travelers  them- 
selves, nor  any  scientific  men,  nor  any  scientific 
societies  seem  to  have  dreamed  of  such  a  thing. 


38  THE   NORTH   POLE 

The  Copenhagen  scientists  were  asked  to  pass  on 
Cook's  report:  they  were  not  asked  to  compare  it 
with  Peary's  narrative:  and  apparently  they  did 
not  do  so.  All  men  of  high  character  and  abso- 
lute impartiality,  they  returned  the  only  verdict 
possible  on  the  evidence  presented:  neither  proven 
nor  disproven.  They  were  asked  to  settle  an 
impossibility:  but  the  queer  thing  is  that  neither 
they  nor  anyone  else  saw  at  the  time  that  it  was 
an  impossibility. 

Mr.  W.  J.  Armbruster  appears  to  have  been  the 
first  man  to  lock  horns  with  the  Copenhagen  Com- 
mittee, and  to  state  that  ''it  was  known,  or  should 
have  been  known,  in  advance  that  any  other 
verdict  was  rationally  impossible."*®  Mr.  Arm- 
bruster, moreover,  does  not  yet,  as  far  as  the 
writer  knows,  seem  to  have  had  any  followers. 

Rear  Admiral  Schley,  U.  S.  N.,  evidently  exam- 
ined the  question  of  the  discovery  of  the  North 
Pole  comparatively,  but  unfortunately  he  appears 
to  have  written  only  a  short  letter,*^  stating  that 
he  considered  that  Cook  and  Peary  both  arrived, 
as  near  as  man  could  be  sure  of  doing,  at  the 
North  Pole. 

The  first  man  apparently  to  apply  seriously  at 
any  length  the   comparative  method   towards  the 

^"The  Martyrdom  of  Dr.  Cook:"  The  Mirror,  St.  Louis, 
3  February,  1910. 
^^ Published  in  My  Attainment  of  the  Pole,  page  584. 


AND   BRADLEY  LAND.  39 

solution  of  the  question  of  who  discovered  the 
North  Pole,  is  Mr.  Evelyn  B.  Baldwin.  In  an 
able  and  dispassionate  essay  *^  he  marshalled  some 
of  the  geographical  and  zoological  evidence  relat- 
ing to  the  discovery  of  the  North  Pole.  Bald- 
win's article  is  of  capital  importance  in  the 
history  of  geographical  discovery,  as  being  prob- 
ably the  first  to  apply  the  comparative  method, 
the  only  method  available,  to  the  elucidation  of 
the  question  of  the  discovery  of  the  North  Pole: 
it  is  really  pioneer  work,  and  may  prove  the  fore- 
runner of  other  valuable  geographical  comparisons. 
In  attempting  now  to  compare  the  evidences 
presented  by  Cook  and  Peary  about  their  respective 
journeys,  it  must  be  pointed  out  first  that  the  only 
facts  of  the  slightest  importance  in  regard  to  the 
discovery  of  the  North  Pole  are  the  facts  relating  to 
the  regions  in  the  Western  Arctic  between  83°  30' 
N.,  and  the  North  Pole.  The  reason  for  this  is  a 
simple  one.  Thru  the  voyages  of  Nares,  Greely, 
Sverdrup,  and  Peary  himself,  the  main  geographical 
facts  relating  to  the  regions  below  83°  30'  N.,  were 
already  fairly  well  known  before  the  voyages  of 
Cook  in  1908  and  of  Peary  in  1909.  From  the 
narratives  of  Nares,  Greely,  Sverdrup  and  Peary, 
some  extraordinarily  clever  and  able  romancer, 
like   Jules   Verne   with   his   Captain   Hatteras   for 

**  Published  as  an  appendix  to  Cook's  My  Attainment  of  the 
Pole,  pages  585-594. 


40  THE    NOETH    POLE 

instance,  might  conceivably  possibly  have  produced 
something  vaguely  resembling  Peary's  narrative 
as  far  as  Cape  Sheridan  and  Cook's  narrative  as 
far  as  Crocker  Land.  But,  beyond  83°  30'  N., 
the  regions  traversed  by  Cook  and  Peary  were, 
when  they  started,  wholly  unknown,  and  to  this 
day  there  is  no  other  information  except  what 
they  have  given  the  world.  It  is  from  the  state- 
ments, the  actions  and  the  observations  of  the 
two  explorers  about  what  they  saw  and  what  they 
did  between  83°  30'  N.,  and  the  North  Pole,  that 
any  opinion  as  to  the  discovery  of  the  North  Pole 
must  be  formed.  These  statements,  telling  of  the 
experiences  and  discoveries  of  Cook  and  Peary, 
offer  to  the  historical  geographer  all  the  evidence 
— geographical,  glaciological,  zoological  and  astro- 
nomical— which  there  is  extant.  And  if  these 
various  statements,  especially  those  relating  to 
geographical  and  glaciological  facts,  are  compared, 
certain    important    deductions    necessarily  follow. 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  41 


IV. 

RECORDS  OF  DR.  COOK  AND  ADMIRAL  PEARY. 

In  an  examination  of  the  facts  presented  by 
Dr.  Cook  and  Admiral  Peary,  of  the  region  in 
the  Western  Arctic  between  83°  20'  N.,  and  the 
North  Pole,  the  first  point  which  must  be  inquired 
into  is  the  records  published  by  the  two  explorers 
about  their  respective  journeys.  About  Admiral 
Peary's  journey  of  1906,  his  book.  Nearest  the  Pole, 
covers  everything  of  geographic  importance. 

There  are  three  records  of  Dr.  Cook's  journey 
of  1908.  Cook's  first  announcement  was  a  long 
cablegram  sent  from  Lerwick,  Shetland  Islands, 
and  published  in  the  New  York  Herald  of  Sep- 
tember 2,  1909.  The  full  original  narrative  was 
sent  immediately  after  this  and  was  published  in 
the  New  York  Herald  between  September  15  and 
October  7,  1909,  with  the  title.  The  Conquest  of  the 
Pole.  Both  of  these  were  written  and  sent  before 
Cook  could  by  any  possibility  have  seen  or  heard 
any  of  the  results  of  Peary's  last  expedition.  In 
1911,  Cook  published  a  book.  My  Attainment  of  the 
Pole,  which,  by  comparison,  will  be  found  to  be 
mainly  an  enlargement  of  The  Conquest  of  the  Pole. 
In  My  Attainment  of  the  Pole  some  passages  have 
been  much  increased  and  others  have  been  modified 
and  corrected  and  somewhat  changed.  But  the  vital 


42  THE    NORTH    POLE 

points,  the  accounts  of  Bradley  Land,  of  Cook- 
Land-Ice,  and  of  the  ice  at  the  Pole,  in  the  Herald 
and  in  My  Attainment  of  the  Pole  are  nearly 
identical.  And  their  dates  of  publication  in  the 
Herald  of  September  2,  and  October  1,  3  and  5, 
1909,  make  it  certain  that  Bradley  Land,  Cook- 
Land-Ice,  and  the  conditions  of  the  ice  at  the 
North  Pole  were  made  known  to  the  world  by 
Cook  and  that  he  did  not  borrow  his  facts  from 
any  other  explorer. 

While  the  all-round  geographer  may  peruse  at 
length  the  incidents  of  Dr.  Cook's  journey  in  My 
Attainment  of  the  Pole,  it  is  necessary  for  the  his- 
torical geographer,  for  historical  purposes,  to  turn 
to  Cook's  original  statements,  published  in  the  New 
York  Herald.  The  reason  for  this  is  that  these 
statements  can  be  based  on  nothing  but  Cook's  own 
observations.  When  Cook  left  South  Greenland, 
nothing  whatever  was  known  there  to  which  Cook 
could  have  turned  for  information.  For  Cook 
started  for  Denmark  from  South  Greenland  before 
Peary  started  for  Labrador  from  North  Greenland; 
and,  therefore,  everything  that  Cook  stated  or 
wrote  or  published  immediately  after  his  arrival  in 
Europe  must  be  based  on  what  Cook  observed  or 
experienced  himself.  Cook's  original  narrative 
stands  on  its  own  merits;  it  is  the  first  and  most 
vital  proof  of  Cook's  veracity,  and  yet  it  has  passed 
almost  unnoticed. 


AND   BRADLEY  LAND,  43 

Cook  himself  must  have  written  the  original 
accounts  in  the  Herald  of  his  journey  from  83°  20' 
N.,  to  the  Pole  from  the  observations  he  had  himself 
made,  for  the  simple  reason  that  no  parties  except 
those  of  Cook  and  Peary  have  been  beyond  83°  30' 
N.,  in  the  Western  Arctic;  that  the  journeys  of 
Peary  were  made  in  longitudes  far  to  the  east  of 
Cook's  journey;  and  because  the  last  expedition  of 
Peary  had  not  returned  at  the  time  Cook  first  gave 
out  his  results.  It  is  especially  important  to  notice 
that  up  to  this  year  1913,  there  is  no  one  except 
Cook  who  has  been  anywhere  in  the  Arctic  north 
of  Axel  Heiberg  Land  and  Grant  Land  in  the  longi- 
tudes where  Cook  traveled.  Cook  alone  has  been 
where  Bradley  Land  could  be  sighted.  There  can 
be  no  possible  doubt  that  if  Bradley  Land  is  in  84° 
20'  N.-85°  11'  N.,  by  about  102°  W.-106°  W., 
Cook,  and  Cook  alone,  is  its  discoverer. 

Altho  anyone  who  chooses  may  consult  the 
files  of  the  New  York  Herald  in  a  certain  number 
of  the  bigger  public  libraries,  as  these  files  are  not 
easily  accessible  to  many  persons,  it  is  necessary  to 
give  some  lengthy  quotations  from  Cook's  original 
articles  in  the  Herald. 

The  New  York  Herald  of  Thursday,  September  2, 
1909,  contains  a  cablegram  from  Lerwick,  Shetland 
Islands,  covering  one  page  and  one  extra  column, 
under  the  heading  The  North  Pole  is  discovered  by 
Dr,  Frederick  A,  Cook,  who  cables  to  the  Herald  an 


44  THE    NORTH    POLE 

exclusive  account  of  how  he  set  the  American  flag 
on  the  world's  top. 

In  this  cablegram  it  is  said: 

"On  March  30  [1908]  the  horizon  was  partly 
cleared  of  its  smoky  agitation,  and  over  the  west- 
ern mist  was  discovered  a  new  land. 

''The  observations  gave  our  position  latitude  84 
deg.  17  min.,  longitude  86  deg.  36  min.  [Cable 
error.] 

"The  urgent  need  of  rapid  advance  on  our  main 
mission  did  not  permit  a  detour  to  explore  the  coast. 

"Here  were  seen  the  last  signs  of  solid  earth. 
Beyond  there  was  nothing  staple  [sic]  and  even  on 
scaling  [sic]  nothing  was  noted  to  mark  the  terres- 
trial Polar  solidity. 

♦  ♦  4«  *  *  *  * 

"Beyond  the  eighty-sixth  parallel  the  icefields 
became  more  extensive  and  heavier,  the  crevices 
fewer  and  less  troublesome,  with  little  or  no  crushed 
ice  thrown  up  as  barriers. 

"From  the  eighty-seventh  to  the  eighty-eighth, 
much  to  our  surprise,  was  the  indication  of  land  ice. 

"For  two  days  we  travelled  over  ice  which 
resembled  a  glacial  surface.  The  usual  sea  ice  lines 
of  demarkation  were  absent  and  there  were  no 
hummocks  or  deep  crevices. 

"There  was,  however,  no  perceptible  elevation 
and  no  positive  sign  of  land  or  sea. 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  45 


i( 


'An  endless  field  of  purple  snows.  No  life. 
No  land.  No  spot  to  relieve  the  monotony  of 
frost.  We  were  the  only  pulsating  creatures  in 
a  dead  world  of  ice." 

The  full  original  narrative  of  Cook's  expedition 
was  published  under  the  title  of  The  Conquest  of 
the  Pole  in  1909,  in  the  New  York  Herald,  in  twelve 
instalments  on:    Wednesday,   September  15;    Fri- 
day, September  17;   Sunday,  September  19;   Tues- 
day,   September    21;     Thursday,    September    23 
Saturday,  September  25;    Monday,  September  27 
Wednesday,    September    29;     Friday,    October    1 
Sunday,  October  3;    Tuesday,  October  5;    Thurs- 
day, October  7. 

On  Friday,  October  1,  1909,  the  narrative  in 
The  Conquest  of  the  Pole  says: 

''The  observations  placed  us  at  latitude  84  deg. 
50  min.,  longitude  95  deg.  36  min. 

"In  the  occasional  clearing  speUs  for  several 
days  we  had  seen  sharply  defined  land  clouds 
drifting  over  a  low  band  of  pearly  fog,  and  we  had 
expected  to  see  land  when  this  veil  lifted.  We 
had,  however,  not  anticipated  to  see  so  long  a  line 
of  coast.  The  land  as  we  saw  it  gave  the  impres- 
sion of  being  two  islands,  but  our  observations 
were  insufficient  to  warrant  such  an  assertion. 
They  may  be  islands,  they  may  be  part  of  a  larger 
land  extending  far  to  the  west.  What  was  seen 
of  the  most  southerly  coast  extends  from  83  deg. 


46  THE    NORTH    POLE 

20  min.  to  83  deg.  51  min.,  close  to  the  102d 
meridian. 

''The  land  has  an  irregular  mountainous  sky 
line,  is  perhaps  eighteen  hundred  feet  high,  and 
resembles  in  its  upper  reaches  the  high  lands  of 
Heiberg  Island.  The  lower  shore  line  was  at  no 
time  visible. 

"From  84  deg.  23  min.  extending  to  85  deg. 
11  min.,  close  to  the  102d  meridian,  the  coast  is 
quite  straight.  Its  upper  surface  is  flat  and  mostly 
ice  capped,  rising  in  steep  cHffs,  to  about  twelve 
hundred  feet.  The  lower  surface  was  so  indis- 
tinctly seen  that  we  were  unable  to  detect  glacial 
streams  or  ice  walls.  Both  lands  were  hopelessly 
buried  under  accumulated  snows. 

''We  were  eager  to  set  foot  on  the  newly  dis- 
covered coast,  for  we  believed  then,  as  proved  by 
later  experience,  that  these  were  the  earth's  north- 
ermost  rocks,  but  the  pressing  need  for  rapid 
advances  in  the  aim  of  our  main  mission  did  not 
permit  of  detours." 

On  Sunday,  October  3,  1909,  the  narrative  in 
The  Conquest  of  the  Pole  continues: 

"Over  the  newly  discovered  coast  line  was 
written  Bradley  Land,  in  honor  of  John  R.  Brad- 
ley, the  benefactor  of  the  expedition. 

*  4(  4e  *  *  He  ♦ 

"The  observations  of  April  11  gave  latitude 
87  deg.  20  min.  longitude  95  min.   19  sec.   [sic] 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  47 

The  pack  disturbance  of  Bradley  Land  was  less 
and  less  noted  in  the  northward  movement.  The 
fields  became  heavier,  larger  and  less  crevassed. 
Fewer  troublesome  old  floes  and  less  crushed  new 
ice  were  encountered. 

4:  4:  4<  4:  4:  4(  4c 

''From  the  eighty-seventh  to  the  eighty-eighth 
parallel  we  passed  for  two  days  over  old  ice  with- 
out pressure  lines  or  hummocks.  There  was  no 
discemable  line  of  demarkation  for  the  fields,  and 
it  was  quite  impossible  to  determine  if  we  were 
on  land  or  sea  ice.  The  barometer  indicated  no 
elevation,  but  the  ice  had  the  hard,  waving  surface 
of  glacial  ice,  with  only  superficial  crevasses.  The 
water  obtained  from  this  was  not  salty,  but  all  of 
the  upper  surface  of  the  ice  of  the  polar  sea  makes 
similar  water.  The  nautical  observations  did  not 
seem  to  indicate  a  drift,  but  nevertheless  the  com- 
bined tabulations  do  not  warrant  the  positive  asser- 
tion of  either  land  or  sea  for  this  area." 

On  October  5,  in  The  Conquest  of  the  Pole,  the 
following  statements  are  made: 

"Signs  of  land  were  still  seen  every  day,  but  they 
were  deceptive  optical  illusions,  and  a  mere  verdict 
of  fancy  *  *  *  *  'pj^g  mirages  turned  things 
topsy  turvy.  Inverted  lands  and  queer  objects  ever 
rose  and  fell  in  shrouds  of  mystery,  but  all  of  this 
was  due  to  the  atmospheric  magic  of  the  midnight 
sun. 


48  THE    NORTH    POLE 

"From  the  eighty-eighth  to  the  eighty-ninth  the 
ice  was  in  very  large  fields  and  the  surface  was  less 
irregular,  but  in  other  respects  it  was  about  the 
same  as  below  the  eighty-seventh.  *  *  *  * 
The  color  of  the  sky  and  the  ice  also  changed  to 
deeper  purple  blues.  *  *  *  *  ^^  j^^g^  ^^  Yisid 
reached  the  boreal  centre  *  *  *  *  Endless 
fields  of  purple  snows.  No  life,  no  land,  no  spot 
to  relieve  the  monotony  of  frost.  We  were  the  only 
pulsating  creatures  in  a  dead  world  of  ice." 

In  the  "Copy  of  the  Field  Notes"  in  My  Attain- 
ment of  the  Pole,  page  571,  Cook  says  of  Bradley 
Land:  "March  30:  Land.  9  A.  M.,  cleared;  land 
was  seen;  westerly  clouds  settled  over  it.  Obser- 
vations 84,  50,  90.36;  bearing  of  land,  southern 
group.  West  by  South  to  West  by  North  true. 
Other  bearings  taken  later  place  a  coast  line  along 
the  102  meridian  from  latitude  84°  20'  to  85°  10'. 
There  must  be  much  open  water  about  the  land, 
for  banks  of  vapor  persistently  hide  part.  A  low 
fog  persistent;  cannot  see  shore;  for  days  we  have 
expected  to  see  something  W.,  but  never  a  clear 
horizon.  Probably  two  island,  S.  hke  Heiberg,  1800 
ft.  high,  valleys,  mountains,  snow,  N.,  table  1000, 
thin  ice  sheets,  bright  nights."  In  My  Attainment 
of  the  Pole,  pages  244-246,  Cook  also  says  of  Brad- 
ley Land:  "As  well  as  I  could  see,  the  land  seemed 
an  interrupted  coast  extending  parallel  to  the  line 
of  march  for  about  fifty  miles,  far  to  the  west.    It 


AND   BRADLEY  LAND.  49 

was  snow  covered,  ice  sheeted  and  desolate.  But 
it  was  real  land  with  all  the  sense  of  security  solid 
earth  can  offer.     *     *     *     *    'pjjjg  j^g^  jg^j^^j  ^g^g 

never  clearly  seen.  *  *  *  *  There  were  two 
distinct  land  masses.  The  most  southern  cape  of 
the  southern  mass  bore  west  by  south,  but  still  fur- 
ther to  the  south  there  were  vague  indications  of 
land.  The  most  northern  cape  of  the  same  mass 
bore  west  by  north.  Above  it  there  was  a  distinct 
break  for  15  or  20  miles,  and  beyond  the  northern 
mass  extended  above  the  eighty-fifth  parallel  to  the 
northwest.  The  entire  coast  was  at  this  time 
placed  on  our  charts  as  having  a  shore  line  along 
the  one  hundred  and  second  meridian,  approxi- 
mately parallel  to  our  line  of  travel.  At  the  time 
the  indications  suggested  two  distinct  islands. 
Nevertheless,  we  saw  so  little  of  the  land  that  we 
could  not  determine  whether  it  consisted  of  islands 
or  of  a  larger  mainland.  The  lower  coast  resembled 
Heiberg  Island,  with  mountains  and  high  valleys. 
The  upper  coast  I  estimated  as  being  about  one 
thousand  feet  high,  flat,  and  covered  with  a  thin 
ice  sheet." 

There  is  a  discrepancy  between  the  narrative  in 
the  Herald  and  the  account  in  My  Attainment  of 
the  Pole  which  must  be  explained.  The  Herald 
places  the  southern  point  of  Bradley  Land  in  83° 
20'  N.:  My  Attainment  of  the  Pole  places  it  in  84° 
20'  N.     It  is  evident  that  the  figures  in  the  Herald 


50  THE   NORTH   POLE 

are  a  printer's  error,  probably  due  to  bad  calli- 
graphy. For  in  both  accounts  Bradley  Land  is 
mentioned  as  being  seen  from  one  position,  and 
both  accounts  agree  in  every  other  particular  but 
in  the  numerals.  Cook  could  readily  have  seen 
fifty  miles  of  coast,  he  could  scarcely  have  seen  a 
hundred  and  ten  miles,  at  one  glance.  It  must  be 
noticed,  however,  that  this  printer's  error  in  the 
figures  of  the  latitudes  in  nowise  affects  the  exist- 
ence of  Bradley  Land. 

Admiral  Peary's  journey  of  1909  is  well  described 
in  his  book  The  North  Pole,  pubhshed  in  1910. 
This  gives  a  straightforward  and  lucid  account  of  a 
voyage,  which,  in  its  conception  and  execution,  could 
not  have  been  improved  on.  Up  to  various  places 
as  far  as  87°  47'  N.,  where  Captain  Bartlett  turned 
back,  the  accuracy  of  Peary's  statements  are 
vouched  for  by  the  testimony  of  Borup,  Mac- 
Millan  and  Bartlett,  and  by  the  notes  of  Professor 
Marvin.  That  Peary  arrived  at  the  traveler's 
North  Pole,  that  is  within  ten  miles  of  the  geo- 
graphical North  Pole,  is  accepted  as  established 
thru  his  astronomical  observations. 

Admiral  Peary's  first  statements  of  his  attain- 
ment of  the  North  Pole  were  four  short  cablegrams 
dated  Indian  Head,  Labrador,  6  September,  1909, 
and  addressed  to  the  Associated  Press,  New  York 
City;  G.  A.  Carmack,  Secretary  New  York  Yacht 
Club;    Herbert    L.    Bridgman;     and    Mrs.   R.   E. 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  61 

Peary.  They  were  published  in  the  New  York 
Herald  of  7  September,  1909.  However,  it  is  not 
imperative  for  the  historical  geographer  to  turn  to 
Peary's  original  statements  in  the  newspapers  about 
his  journey  of  1909,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
everything  that  Peary  cabled  or  wrote  to  news- 
papers comes  subsequent  to  Cook's  original  cable- 
gram account  published  on  September  2,  1909. 
This  fact  must  be  brought  out  clearly,  definitely 
and  positively.  For  this  fact  makes  Peary's  posi- 
tion the  exact  reverse  of  Cook's  position.  Cook, 
when  he  penned  his  cablegram  announcing  the 
conditions  at  the  North  Pole,  could  not  have  turned 
for  information  to  Peary  nor  to  anyone  else  in 
the  world;  Peary,  on  the  contrary,  when  he  penned 
his  original  statements,  could,  like  everyone  else 
in  the  world,  have  turned  for  information  to  Cook. 
It  is  therefore  of  prime  importance  that  Peary's 
astronomical  observations  are  accepted  as  proving 
that  Peary  reached  the  traveler's  North  Pole,  be- 
cause Peary's  account  of  the  conditions  at  the 
North  Pole  corroborates  and  verifies  in  every 
detail  Cook's  account  of  the  conditions  at  the 
North  Pole. 

The  vital  and  decisive  historical  fact  connected 
with  the  records  relating  to  the  discovery  of  the 
North  Pole  is  that  Cook's  announcement,  in  his 
cablegram  published  in  the  New  York  Heraldy 
2  September,  1909,  that  at  the  North  Pole  there 


52  THE    NORTH    POLE 

is  ''an  endless  field  of  purple  snows.  No  life.  No 
land."  is  the  first  statement  ever  made  by  any- 
one claiming  to  be  an  eye  witness  of  conditions 
at  the  North  Pole.  It  is  authoritative  in  giving 
Cook  priority  in  recording  what  the  North  Pole 
looks  like,  and  there  can  never  be  the  slightest 
question  that  Cook  was  the  first  to  record  its 
attainment.  Cook  elaborated  the  account  of  the 
discovery  of  and  the  conditions  at  the  North  Pole 
in  The  Conquest  of  the  Pole,  which  was  written 
before  Peary's  return  and  sent  to  America  almost 
simultaneously  with  Peary's  return.  History  must 
inevitably  pronounce  Cook  the  describer  of  the 
North  Pole,  for  it  is  an  historical  fact  that  the  first 
account  of  the  North  Pole  was  given  to  the  world 
by  Cook. 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  53 

V. 

BRADLEY  LAND. 

If  one  examines  Cook's  original  records,  of 
which  the  first  was  published  before  Peary's  re- 
turn, and  the  other  written  before  Peary's  return, 
there  are  three  points  in  particular  which  claim 
attention.  The  first  is  the  account  of  the  land 
sighted  in  84°  20'  N.-85°  11'  N.  The  second  is 
the  glacial  land  ice  in  87°-88°  N.  The  third  is 
the  account  of  the  discovery  of  the  North  Pole 
and  the  description  of  the  ice  of  the  North  Pole. 
They  are  all  three  mentioned  in  the  cablegram 
pubHshed  in  the  Herald  of  September  2,  1909, 
and  described  more  at  length  in  The  Conquest  of 
the  Pole.  The  first  and  second  of  these  discov- 
eries support  Harris'   theory. 

Peary's  account,  in  The  North  Pole,  of  his 
journey  of  1909,  on  the  contrary,  at  first  blush, 
seems  wholly  corroborative  of  Nansen's  theory. 
From  Grant  Land  to  the  North  Pole  and  back, 
Peary  was  entirely  on  sea  ice.  He  saw  no  land, 
he  observed  no  land  ice.  During  his  trip  the  ice 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  in  any  violent  motion, 
since  Peary  returned  in  his  up  tracks.  From 
anything  that  Peary  himself  observed  about  the 
surface  of  the  Arctic  on  his  last  journey,  Nansen's 
theory  is  correct.     Peary  makes  no  suggestion  in 


54  THE    NORTH    POLE 

any  of  his  reports,  nor  in  his  books,  of  knowing 
of  any  land  north  of  83°  20'  N.  Nevertheless, 
Peary,  in  regard  to  Cook's  three  most  important 
discoveries,  forcibly  corroborates  Cook. 

Cook's  first  great  discovery  is  Bradley  Land. 
This  land  Cook  says  he  sighted  from  a  position  in 
84°  50'  N.-95°  36'  W.,  and  that  it  extends  from 
84°  20'  N.,  to  85°  11'  N.,  with  a  break,  a  strait  or 
an  indentation,  in  the  middle.  Cook  places 
Bradley  Land  in  about  102°  W.;  but  it  must  be 
remembered  that  distances  in  the  Polar  regions 
are  usually  underestimated,  and  that  this  coast, 
therefore,  might  easily  be  situated  in  105°  W., 
or  even  farther  west.  From  Cook's  observations 
it  seems  possible  that  Bradley  Land  consists  of 
two  islands  situated  on  opposite  sides  of  a  frozen 
channel:  from  the  position  from  which  Cook 
sighted  it,  however,  Bradley  Land  must  resemble 
Mount  Desert  Island  and  Somes  Sound,  as  seen 
from  far  out  at  sea. 

Bradley  Land,  according  to  Cook's  observations, 
terminates  to  the  south  in  about  84°  20'  N.,  with 
vague  indications  of  land  still  farther  in  the  south. 
This  means  that  Bradley  Land,  which,  with  its 
indentation,  Cook  estimates  at  some  fifty  geo- 
graphical miles  in  length,  is  entirely  and  com- 
pletely north  of  Crocker  Land.  For  Crocker  Land, 
according  to  Peary's  map,  terminates  to  the  north 
in  about  83°  20'   N.     Whether  there  is  land  or 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  55 

water  in  the  intervening  sixty  geographical  miles 
is  a  problem,  but  in  order  to  be  perfectly  fair  to 
both  explorers,  and  to  allow  for  errors  in  observa- 
tions, one  might  split  the  difference  at  83°  50'  N., 
and  consider  that  latitude  as  a  dividing  line 
between  the  lands  discovered  respectively  by  Cook 
and  Peary. 

If  Bradley  Land  and  Crocker  Land  are  sepa- 
rated by  icy  straits,  it  seems  just  barely  possible 
that  the  Big  Lead  extends  thru  or  terminates 
at  these  straits.  Or  the  Big  Lead  may  extend 
beyond  or  die  out  west  and  south  of  Crocker 
Land.  Any  of  these  possibilities,  however,  are 
conjectures  at  present  and  a  problem  of  the  future. 

Whether  Bradley  Land  stops  at  85°  11'  N.,  or 
whether  it  extends  any  farther  north  is  unknown. 
It  is  not  likely,  however,  that  it  extends  beyond 
86°  N.  For,  from  Cook's  observations,  it  is  surely 
separated  from  Cook-Land-Ice  by  a  stretch  of  icy 
sea. 

Peary  offers  one  observation  on  his  1909  trip, 
pointing  to  the  existence  of  lands  in  the  Western 
Arctic.  This  is  a  sounding  by  Professor  Marvin. 
Peary  says:*^  ''At  the  next  camp  Marvin  made 
a  sounding,  and  to  our  surprise  reached  bottom  at 
only  three  hundred  and  ten  fathoms  *  *  *  *  and 
after  a  short  march — only  some  ten  miles    *    *    *    * 


40 


The  North  Pole,  page  246. 


56  THE    NORTH    POLE 

Marvin  made  another  sounding  of  seven  hundred 
fathoms  and  no  bottom."  The  exact  latitude  of 
these  soundings  is  not  mentioned,  and  the  text  is 
somewhat  involved,  but  it  may  mean  that  these 
soundings  were  made  at  the  two  camps  following 
the  camp  at  85°  23'  N.,  that  is,  somewhere  below 
86°  N.  Harris  himself,  the  originator  of  the  theory 
of  lands  in  the  Central  Arctic,  writes  of  these  sound- 
ings:™ "These  soundings  prove  the  existence  of  a 
continental  shelf  covered  by  about  100  fathoms  of 
water,  and  whose  edge,  north  of  Cape  Columbia, 
lies  about  46  sea  miles  from  the  shore.  In  latitude 
84°  29'  the  depth  was  found  to  be  825  fathoms, 
while  in  latitude  85°  23'  it  was  found  to  be  only 
310  fathoms.  This  diminution  in  depth  is  a  fact 
of  considerable  interest  in  reference  to  the  possible 
existence  of  land  to  the  westward."  This  ''land  to 
the  westward,"  as  has  been  pointed  out  already  by 
Baldwin,  is,  of  course,  Bradley  Land.  But  while 
these  soundings  may  indicate  connection  between 
this  shoal  and  Bradley  Land,  while  it  is  possible 
that  this  ridge  is  a  shelf  of  Bradley  Land,  it  is  not 
necessarily  so,  since,  on  account  of  the  distance,  it 
may  be  rather  in  the  nature  of  a  separate  sub- 
merged island.  In  either  case,  however,  it  is 
decided  evidence  that  there  are  still  more  unknown 
islands  in  the  unknown  Arctic. 

^°  Appendix  of  Peary's  The  North  Pole,  page  338. 


AND   BRADLEY  LAND.  57 

Bradley  Land  is  charted  roughly  in  the  New 
York  Herald,  of  October  1,  3,  5,  and  7,  1909.  It 
is  charted  correctly  in  My  Attainment  of  the  Pole, 
and  also  correctly,  I  hope,  on  the  chart  accompany- 
ing this  monograph.  It  is  charted  also  on  the  chart 
accompanying  Peary's  book  The  North  Pole.  This 
chart  is  by  Mr.  Gilbert  H.  Grosvenor  and  is  a  re- 
vised edition  of  a  ''Map  of  the  North  Pole  Regions, 
prepared  by  Gilbert  H.  Grosvenor,  Editor.  "^^  The 
chart  in  Peary's  book  is  entitled,  ''The  Arctic  Re- 
gion, showing  Explorations  towards  the  North  Pole, 
Prepared  by  Gilbert  H.  Grosvenor,  Director  and 
Editor  of  the  National  Geographic  Society."  On 
this  chart,  Mr.  Grosvenor  has  charted  a  land  north 
of  Crocker  Land  and  south  of  85°  N.,  and  marked 
it  "Bradley  Land."  While  the  position  given  to 
this  land  by  Mr.  Grosvenor  does  not  extend  far 
enough  north,  nevertheless  his  placing  "Bradley 
Land"  on  the  map  shows  that  the  able  editor 
of  the  National  Geographic  Magazine  believes  in 
Bradley  Land. 

There  are  doubtless  some  persons  to-day  who 
disbelieve  in  the  existence  of  Bradley  Land,  just  as 
formerly  some  persons  disbelieved  in  the  existence 
of  Wilkes  Land.  Indeed,  certain  scientific  bodies 
at  present  ignore  Bradley  Land  precisely  as  certain 
scientific  bodies  in  the  past  ignored  Wilkes  Land. 
But  Bradley  Land  cannot  be  annihilated  as  a  geo- 

^^  The  National  Geogra'phic  Magazine,  Vol.  XVIIL,  July,  1907. 


68  THE   NORTH   POLE 

logical  formation  by  a  jflourish  of  the  pen  nor  by 
ignoring  it,  nor  can  it  be  claimed,  if  re-found,  as  a 
new  discovery.  Present  disbelief  will  not  destroy 
the  entity  of  Bradley  Land  any  more  than  past  dis- 
belief destroyed  the  entity  of  Wilkes  Land.  For 
more  than  seventy  years,  again  and  again,  the 
existence  of  Wilkes  Land  was  denied.  Repeated 
attempts  were  made  to  wipe  it  off  the  map.  It  was 
claimed  many  times  that  ships  had  sailed  over 
Wilkes  Land.  Nevertheless,  in  1912,  Captain  Davis 
sailed  along  the  coast  of  Wilkes  Land,  and  at  two 
places  landed  parties  from  Dr.  Mawson's  expedi- 
tion on  Wilkes  Land.  Something  similar  will 
doubtless  take  place  in  regard  to  Bradley  Land  as 
took  place  in  regard  to  Wilkes  Land.  Wilkes 
Land,  revisited  and  its  existence  verified  by  Davis, 
has  been  quietly  accepted  as  an  actuahty  by 
geographers.  In  the  same  way,  if  some  explorer 
of  the  future  finds  land  in  84°  20'  N.-85°  11'  N., 
by  102°  W.-106°  W.,  he  wiU  have  proved  the  exist- 
ence of  Bradley  Land,  and  some  historical  geogra- 
pher of  the  future  may  be  relied  upon  to  see  to 
it  that  Cook  receives  due  credit  for  its  discovery. 
If  Bradley  Land  is  an  actuality,  it  is  tangible,  irrefu- 
table proof  of  Cook's  discoveries.  If  Bradley  Land 
exists,  the  credit  of  discovering  it  cannot  be  taken 
away  from  Cook,  any  more  than  the  credit  of 
discovering  Wilkes  Land  can  be  taken  away  from 
Admiral  Wilkes. 


AND   BRADLEY  LAND.  59 

VI. 

LAND-ICES  IN  THE  ARCTIC  OCEAN. 

The  second  important  discovery  of  Cook's  is 
the  glacial  land  ice  in  87°  N.-88°  N.  It  is  men- 
tioned in  Cook's  cablegram  published  September 
2,  1909;  described  more  fully  in  The  Conquest  oj 
the  Pole;  and  spoken  of  again  in  almost  identical 
words  in  My  Attainment  of  the  Pole.  A  closely 
similar  occurrence  was  observed  by  Peary  on  his 
1906  trip  in  about  86°  N.-60'  W.^^  The  most 
descriptive  temporary  appellations  for  these  two 
phenomena  perhaps  are  Cook-Land-Ice  and  Peary- 
Land-Ice.  What  are  Cook-Land-Ice  and  Peary- 
Land-Ice?  How  are  they  formed?  What  do  they 
mean? 

An  answer  to  these  questions  is  not  easy,  indeed 
it  is  not  possible,  at  present.  In  Cook-Land-Ice 
and  Peary-Land-Ice  we  have  two  cases  of  what 
two  experienced  polar  travelers  considered  was 
land-ice  far  from  any  known  land.  To  the  best 
of  my  knowledge,  nothing  else  of  the  kind  has 
been  reported  from  the  Antarctic  nor  even  from  the 
Arctic.  This  is  a  question  of  considerable  inter- 
est in  glaciology  which,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  not 
received  as  yet  the  attention  it  should  receive 
from  glaciologists. 

^^  Nearest  the  Pole,  page  131. 


60  THE    NORTH   POLE 

The  first  explanation  which  suggests  itself  is 
that,  in  the  vicinity  of  those  Land-Ices,  there  is 
land  which  was  beyond  the  range  of  vision  of  the 
two  explorers.  If  this  is  the  case,  as  the  drift  of 
the  Arctic  pack  is  in  the  main  from  Bering  Strait 
towards  Spitzbergen,  these  unseen  lands  should  lie 
to  the  westward  of  those  Land-Ices.  It  is  con- 
ceivable that  there  is  an  island  rising  above  sea 
level  not  far  to  the  west  of  Cook-Land-Ice,  and 
that  this  island  is  the  cause  of  Cook-Land-Ice. 
This,  however,  can  hardly  be  the  case  with  Peary- 
Land-Ice.  It  seems  scarcely  possible  that  there 
could  be  a  land  of  any  size  between  Peary's 
tracks  of  1906  and  1909  without  his  having  seen 
it  from  some  point,  and  it  seems  most  improbable 
that  there  could  be  any  land  east  of  Peary-Land- 
Ice. 

A  second  possible  explanation  is  that  these 
Land-Ices  are  formed  on  underlying  shoals  or  sub- 
merged banks:  on  the  tops,  so  to  speak,  of  sunken 
islands.  Mr.  Baldwin  has  pointed  out  that,  from 
the  ice  conditions  found  by  Peary  in  87°  N.-88° 
N.,  there  is  some  evidence  of  a  submerged  island 
or  shoal  under  Cook-Land-Ice.  Between  87°  N.- 
88°  N.,  that  is  due  east  of  Cook-Land-Ice,  Peary 
traveled,  both  going  and  coming,  across  a  region 
where  the  ice  conditions  differed  entirely  from 
those  he  observed  anywhere  else  between  Grant 
Land  and  the  North  Pole,  a  region  where  there 


AND   BRADLEY  LAND.  61 

was  almost  as  much  open  water  as  ice.^  Bald- 
win's explanation  is  that  the  pack  drifting  from 
west  to  east  is  divided  and  broken  up  by  Cook- 
Land-Ice,  and  that  the  ice  over  which  Peary 
traveled  between  87°  N.-88°  N.,  consists  of  floes 
shattered  in  their  passage  north  and  south  of 
Cook-Land-Ice.  The  explanation  is  plausible, 
and,  in  view  of  Baldwin's  great  Arctic  experience, 
it  comes  with  telling  force  from  him. 

There  is  one  fact,  however,  which  may  be  cited 
in  rebuttal  of  Mr.  Baldwin's  explanation,  namely, 
that  Captain  Bartlett  sounded  at  87°  12'  N.,  in 
1260  fathoms  with  no  bottom,^  and  this  is  a 
decided  piece  of  evidence  against  a  submerged 
bank  not  far  to  the  west.  It  points  rather  to  the 
deep  ocean  which  Peary  found  at  the  North  Pole 
where  he  sounded  in  1500  fathoms  no  bottom,^^ 
extending  in  the  Western  Arctic  for  some  degrees 
of  latitude  to  the  south  of  the  North  Pole. 

Cook-Land-Ice  and  Peary-Land-Ice  certainly 
offer  some  interesting  problems.  Near  them 
neither  of  their  discoverers  sighted  land.  Cook 
says  of  Cook-Land-Ice  in  The  Conquest  of  the  Pole 
that  "the  combined  tabulations  do  not  warrant 
the  positive  assertion  of  either  land  or  sea  for  this 

^The  North  Pole,  pages  259,  260,  262,  265,  303,  304,  307. 
^^  The  North  Pole,  page  262. 
^^The  North  Pole,  page  304. 


62  THE   NOBTH   POLE 

area."  Neither  Cook  nor  Peary  made  any  sound- 
ings near  enough  to  these  strange  formations  to 
determine  positively  whether  there  are  or  are  not 
shoals  beneath  them.  If  there  are,  Bartlett's 
sounding  in  87°  12'  N.,  suggests  that  the  sides  of 
these  sunken  islands  are  extremely  abrupt.  This 
may  be  the  case  and,  somewhat  like,  for  instance, 
Peter  Island  in  West  Antarctica,  Cook-Land-Ice 
and  Peary-Land-Ice  may  be  the  ice-capped  tops  of 
sunken  islands  rising  sheerly  amid  greater  sur- 
rounding depths.  Whatever  the  real  explanation 
may  be  and  until  further  observations  clear  up 
the  matter,  the  finding  far  from  known  lands  in 
the  Arctic,  by  Cook  of  old  ice  without  pressure 
lines  and  hummocks  and  with  the  hard,  waving 
surface  of  glacial  ice,  and  by  Peary  of  floes  which 
looked  as  if  they  did  not  move  even  in  summer 
and  of  berg-like  pieces  of  ice  discolored  with  sand, 
suggest  the  probability  that  there  are  either  some 
still  unknown  islands,  or  else  some  shoals  or  banks, 
or  perhaps  both,  in  the  Western  Arctic.  If  there 
is  such  an  island  in  the  vicinity  of  or  such  a  shoal 
under  Cook-Land-Ice,  it  might  weU  prove  to  be 
the  extreme  northern  point  of  Mr.  Harris'  theo- 
retical lands.  At  present,  however,  this  problem 
is  in  a  state  of  uncertainty  and  surmise,  and  awaits 
solution. 


AND   BRADLEY  LAND.  63 


VII. 

THE  NORTH  POLE. 

The  third  and  most  important  geographical  fact 
announced  to  the  world  by  Cook  in  his  cablegram 
published  in  the  New  York  Herald  2  September, 
1909,  and  described  more  at  length  in  The  Con- 
quest of  the  Pole,  is  that  there  is  ocean,  covered 
with  a  smooth  sheet  of  level  ice,  at  the  North 
Pole.  If  that  description  of  the  North  Pole  is 
accurate,  the  writing  of  it  by  Cook,  first  of  all  men, 
on  the  face  of  it,  is  proof  that  Cook  is  the  discoverer 
of  the  North  Pole. 

That  Cook's  description  is  accurate  is  in  the 
first  place  verified  to  some  extent  by  the  word 
''purple'^  used  in  Cook's  cablegram  published 
2  September,  1909.  This  word  needs  explanation, 
because  it  carries  with  it  internal  evidence  of  Cook's 
accuracy  as  an  observer  of  nature;  and  to  explain 
it,  one  must  leave  geography  for  a  moment,  and 
talk  art. 

''Purple  snows"  is  linguistic  impressionism. 
''Purple  snows"  is  an  attempt  to  suggest  with 
words  what  Frank  Wilbert  Stokes  has  done 
with  paints  in  his  superb  pictures  of  the  Polar 
regions.  Yellow,  red  and  blue  are  the  three 
primary  pigments.  Each  one  of  these  has  its 
complementary  color,  which   consists  of  the  chro- 


64  THE    NORTH    POLE 

matic  combination  of  the  other  two.  The  comple- 
mentary color  of  yellow,  the  mixture  of  red  and 
blue,  is  purple  and  in  pale  tints  is  sometimes  called 
violet.  Words  cannot  describe  exactly  an  absolute 
color:  they  can  only  hint  at  it.  On  a  sunny  day, 
the  color  of  the  sun  and  of  the  lights  is  yellowish, 
leaning  sometimes  toward  red,  and,  therefore, 
the  color  of  the  shadows  is  the  complementary  of 
yellow,  a  more  or  less  reddish  or  bluish  violet  or 
purple.  When  sunlight  shines  on  a  snowy  land- 
scape, with  white  as  the  only  local  color,  these 
spectral  colors  are  much  accentuated:  the  whole 
color  scheme  is  yellowish  light  and  purplish  shadow. 
With  the  sun  just  above  the  horizon,  a  snowscape 
is  yellowish  in  the  direction  of  the  sun,  and  every- 
where else  it  is  purplish.  With  the  sun  just  below 
the  horizon,  a  snowscape  is  wholly  in  purple  shadow. 
In  the  middle  of  April,  these  are  exactly  the 
conditions  under  which  an  observer  at  the  North 
Pole  would  see  the  great  frozen  ice  sheet.  Towards 
the  sun,  he  would  see  a  small  yellowish  segment, 
but  the  rest  of  the  vast  level  snow  expanse  would  be 
of  a  reddish  blue,  that  is  purple.  The  effect  of  the 
mass  as  a  whole,  would  be  that  of  a  ''field  of  purple 
snows.''  The  use  of  the  word  ''purple,"  therefore, 
by  Dr.  Cook,  who  is  not  a  trained  artist,  proves 
that  he  has  the  eye  of  an  impressionist  painter  and 
that  he  is  an  extremely  accurate  observer  of  his 
surroundings. 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  65 

That  Cook^s  description  is  accurate  is  in  the  next 
place  certified  to  by  Peary.  Peary  corroborates 
Cook  absolutely  about  the  conditions  at  the  North 
Pole.  And  Cook  is  corroborated  by  Peary  not 
only  by  what  Peary  saw,  but  also  by  what  Peary 
did.  If  there  were  anything  in  the  Western  Arctic 
between. the  North  Pole  and  87°  47'  N.,  but ''an 
endless  field  of  purple  snows,"  smooth  and  slip- 
pery, Peary  could  not  have  covered  the  inter- 
vening 133  geographical  miles  in  two  days  and  a 
few  hours.  Peary,  therefore,  from  observation  and 
from  actual  physical  performance,  proves  that 
Cook's  most  important  statement  is  true.  The 
field  of  level  ice  at  the  North  Pole,  which  Cook 
discovered  and  was  the  first  to  tell  the  world  of, 
and  whose  existence  Peary  verified,  is  a  fact. 

That  Cook  penned  the  first  description  of  the 
North  Pole  is  an  historical  fact,  and  that  this 
description  is  based  on  Cook's  own  unaided  obser- 
vations is  easily  proved.  This  proof  rests  on 
the  fact  that  an  explorer  can  make  positive  and 
definite  statements  about  unknown  polar  regions 
only  within  the  limits  or  extent  of  his  range  or 
field  of  vision.  It  is  true  that  that  field  is  any- 
thing but  a  restricted  one  in  dimensions,  for  there 
are  numerous  cases  where  high  mountains  rising 
above  the  horizon  or  land-blinks  have  been  sighted 
from  great  distances.  But  it  is  also  true,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  the  polar  field  of  vision  is  full  of 


66  THE   NORTH   POLE 

pitfalls,  and  that  within  it  strange  blunders  have 
been  made,  as,  for  instance,  when  lands  close  to 
an  explorer  have  escaped  his  notice. 

That  high  mountain  ranges  and  land-blinks  over 
high  lands  have  been  seen  at  immense  distances 
in  the  Polar  regions  may  be  verified  from  the  three 
following  occurrences.  Sir  James  Clark  Ross^^ 
saw  the  land-blink  over  South  Victoria  Land, 
some  hours  before  he  actually  sighted  its  moun- 
tain peaks,  which  ''must  have  been  more  than 
one  hundred  miles  distant  when  first  seen."  Lieu- 
tenant Commander  Cadwalader  Ringgold,  U.  S. 
N.,"  on  January  13th,  1840,  saw  ''the  loom  usual 
over  high  land"  over  the  exact  position,  about 
one  hundred  miles  distant,  where  the  Balleny 
Islands  lay:  a  fact  noticed  by  Mr.  C.  E.  Borch- 
grevink^^  and  explained  at  length  by  the  present 
writer .^^  Lieutenant  Charles  Wilkes,  U.  S.  N.,'« 
states  that  on  February  17th,  1840,  "Appearances 
of  land  were  also  seen  to  the  southwest,  and  its 
trending  seemed  to  be  to  the  northward."    Wilkes 

^  Voyage  of  Discovery  and  Research  in  the  Southern  and  Ant- 
arctic Regions,  1847,  Vol.  I.,  page  183. 

^''Narrative  of  the  United  States  Exploring  Expedition,  1845, 
Vol.  II.,  page  469. 

^^The  Qeographical  Journal,  1900,  Vol.  XVI.,  page  381. 

^^  Antarctica,  1902,  pages  142,  179. 

^'^  Narrative  of  the  United  States  Exploring  Expedition,  1845, 
Vol.  II.,  page  327. 


AND   BRADLEY  LAND.  67 

charted  this  as  Termination  Land,  too  far  to  the 
east,  but  in  the  exact  direction  of  the  ''Highland" 
sighted  in  1902  by  Dr.  E.  von  Drygalski.^^  That 
Wilkes'  ''appearances  of  land"  must  have  been 
the  land-blink  over  Drygalski's  highland,  altho 
Wilkes  was  perhaps  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  miles  distant  when  he  noted  it,  is  proved  from 
Ross'  still  more  distant  view  of  the  land-blink 
over  South  Victoria  Land,  and  shows  that  Dry- 
galski's highland  is  the  western  coast  of  the 
promontory  of  Antarctica,  named  by  Wilkes  Term- 
ination Land. 

That  atmospheric  conditions,  on  the  contrary, 
are  sometimes  of  such  a  nature  as  to  prevent  ex- 
plorers from  seeing  lands  lying  immediately  before 
them,  may  be  gathered  from  the  following  in- 
stances. When  Julius  Payer  and  Karl  Weyprecht 
in  1873  were  actually  frozen  in  for  the  winter 
"  often  as  we  went  on  deck  and  cast  our  eyes 
over  the  wastes "  they  saw  only  the  ice.  Yet 
after  some  long,  dismal  days  "a  wall  of  mist,  lifting 
itself  up  suddenly,  revealed  *  *  *  the  outlines 
of  bold  rocks  *  *  *  Kaiser  Franz  Josef's 
Land."®^  Peary  himself,  when  standing  with  Astrup 
on  Navy  Cliff  in  1892,  thought  that  he  was  on 
the  edge  of  the  Arctic   ocean,  for  he  says:    "Be- 

^^Zum  Kontinent  des  Eisigen  Siidens,  1904. 
®^ Julius    Payer:    New    Lands    Within    the    Arctic    Circle, 
1876,  Vol.  I.,  pages  277-279. 


68  THE    NORTH    POLE 

yond  this  the  bay  ice  seemed  perfectly  smooth 
and  unbroken,  and  stretched  away  uninterrupted 
to  the  distant  white  horizon  of  the  north  eastern 
Arctic  ocean.  We  could  distinctly  discern  the 
broad  expanse  of  the  ice-covered  sea,  but  the  dis- 
tance was  too  great  for  us  to  make  out  any  details 
of  the  surface." ^^  In  reality,  Peary  was  about  one 
hundred  miles,  or  some  fourteen  degrees  of  longi- 
tude, distant  from  the  sea  coast — a  fact  brought 
out  by  Major  General  Greely^ — and  was  over- 
looking Mylius  Erichsen  Land,  across  whose  site 
Peary  wrote  in  1907:  ''East  Greenland  Sea."^^ 
Captain  Larsen,  a  careful  and  rehable  observer, 
in  1893,  landed  on  Christ ensen  Island  in  Larsen 
Bay,  directly  on  the  edge  of  Nordenskjold  Land. 
Nevertheless,  owing  to  peculiar  atmospheric  con- 
ditions, he  did  not  see  the  coast  immediately  be- 
fore him,  and  thought  he  might  be  at  the  entrance 
of  a  big  strait.^® 

It  is  evident  from  these  examples,  and  there  are 
many  others,  that  while  a  traveler  in  the  Polar  re- 
gions  may,    under   certain    conditions,    make    dis- 

^^  Northward  over  the  Great  Ice,  Vol.  I.,  page  347. 

^^  Handbook  of  Polar  Discoveries,  1910,  page  256. 

^^  Nearest  the  Pole:  Map. 

^^  Mitthdlungen  der  Geographischen  Gesellschaft  in  Hamburg, 
1891-92,  Heft  II.,  1895,  pages  245-298.  Narske  G.  S.  Aar- 
bog,  5,  1893-94,  pages  115-131.  The  Geographical  Journal, 
1894,  Vol.  IV.,  pages  333-344.    Antarctica,  pages  199,  200. 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  69 

coveries  at  distances  of  over  one  hundred  miles,  he 
ma3'',  under  other  conditions,  be  unaware  of  what 
lies  immediately  before  him.  When,  therefore, 
there  is  only  a  level  plain  of  ocean  ice,  such  as  there 
is  at  the  North  Pole,  in  front  of  a  traveler,  it  is  im- 
possible for  him,  in  the  clearest  weather,  to  see  non- 
existent lands;  and  yet,  without  patient  observa- 
tions, kept  up  for  many  days,  he  cannot  be  sure 
that  atmospheric  conditions  do  not  blot  out  some 
mountain  range  otherwise  within  his  field  of  vision. 
It  is  safe  to  say  that  no  explorer,  looking  hurriedly 
over  some  unknown  stretch  of  the  Arctic  expanse, 
could  state  positively  whether  there  is  land  or  sea 
twenty-five  miles  away  from  his  position. 

Turning  now  to  the  narratives  of  Dr.  Nansen,^^ 
Captain  Cagni,^  and  Admiral  Peary  in  1906,  the 
three  explorers  who,  before  Cook,  approached  most 
nearly  to  the  North  Pole,  it  will  be  found  that 
there  are  no  statements  by  any  one  of  these 
men  which  would  have  given  Cook  any  trust- 
worthy information  as  to  whether  there  was  land 
or  sea  at  the  North  Pole.  Neither  Nansen, 
Cagni,  nor  Peary  in  1906,  pretend  to  have  seen 
from  their  farthest  points  anything  beyond  the 
horizon  line,  a  distance  at  the  most  of  fifteen  miles. 

'^''Farthest  N&rth,  1897. 

^^Luigi  Amedeo  of  Savoy,  Duke  of  the  Abruzzi:  On  the 
'Polar  Star'  in  the  Arctic  Sea,  1903. 


70  THE    NORTH   POLE 

When,  on  his  1906  trip,  Peary  stopped  at  87°  6'  N., 
he  was  174  geographical  miles  from  the  North  Pole, 
and  nearly  thirty  degrees  of  longitude,  that  is, 
altho  the  mileage  is  hard  to  figure  out  accurately, 
something  like  one  hundred  miles  east  of  the  nearest 
point  of  Cook's  route.  Any  surmises,  based  on  any 
statements  of  Nansen,  Cagni,  and  Peary  in  1906,  as 
to  what  there  was  twenty-five  miles  away  from  the 
farthest  points  of  these  three  explorers,  would, 
before  Cook's  journey,  have  been  guesses. 

Not  only  could  no  one  have  known  beforehand 
that  in  the  section  of  the  Western  Arctic  between 
88°  N.,  and  the  North  Pole  there  was  no  land  but 
only  frozen  ocean;  but,  in  addition,  it  was  still 
more  impossible  for  anyone,  until  that  frozen  ocean 
was  actually  traversed,  to  have  announced,  except 
as  a  guess,  the  nature  of  its  icy  surface.  Peary 
himself,  on  his  1909  trip,  had  no  suspicion,  altho 
he  had  been  at  87°  6'  N.,  that  he  would  strike  a 
wide  space  of  dangerous,  broken  ice  between  87° 
N.-88°  N.  Peary's  prior  observations,  and  espec- 
ially Nansen's  observations,  strongly  pointed  to 
the  Arctic  Ocean  ice  consisting  of  floes  intersected 
everywhere  by  pressure  ridges,  over  which  a  trav- 
eler and  his  dogs  must  slowly  and  painfully  drag 
the  heavy  sledges.  These  observations  any  one 
can  easily  verify  for  himself  visually  by  looking  at 
Nansen's  photographs  in  Farthest  North  and  still 
more  at  the   illustrations   in   Peary's  Nearest  the 


AND   BRADLEY  LAND.  71 

Pole.  One  of  the  latter,  a  photograph  entitled 
"A  Sample  of  the  Arctic  Pack,"^^  by  its  very  title 
seems  intended  to  bring  home  to  an  onlooker  the 
kind  of  surface  a  traveler  across  the  Western  Arctic 
ocean  might  expect  to  find  extending  to  the  North 
Pole.  Another,  a  colored  illustration  by  Mr. 
Albert  Operti,^°  shows  that  there  are  pressure 
ridges  up  to  87°  6'  N.  No  human  being,  before 
Cook's  journey,  could  have  foreseen  with  any 
certainty  and  except  as  guesswork,  that  on  the 
western  side  of  the  Arctic  near  to  the  North  Pole 
there  are  no  pressure  ridges,  but  a  smooth  field  of 
level  floes. 

Neither  was  there  any  scientific  theory  or 
hypothesis  about  the  conditions  at  the  North  Pole 
which,  before  Cook's  journey,  offered  any  guarantee 
of  accuracy.  The  only  two  theories  of  any  impor- 
tance were  absolutely  contradictory.  Harris  sur- 
mised land  at  the  North  Pole  and  plotted  it  on  his 
chart.  Nansen  surmised  ocean  at  the  North  Pole 
and  delineated  it  on  his  chart.  To  an  outsider,  it 
was  a  toss-up  as  to  whether  Harris  or  Nansen  was 
right. 

As  it  was  then,  it  is  still  to-day.  It  remains  a 
toss-up,  as  to  which  theory  about  the  unknown 
Arctic,  Harris'  or  Nansen's,  is  right.     Guess  you 

^^  Nearest  the  Pole,  page  157. 
'^'^  Nearest  the  Pole,  Frontispiece. 


72  THE    NORTH    POLE 

may,  but  nobody  knows.  No  one  to-day  can  state 
with  certainty  what  there  is  in  the  Eastern  Arctic 
between  the  North  Pole  and  Dr.  Nansen's  and 
Captain  Cagni's  farthest  points.  And  still  more 
uncertain  are  we  at  present  of  what  there  may  be 
in  the  Western  Arctic,  between  75°  N. — 88°  N., 
115°  W.— 180°.  There  may  be  land,  there  may 
be  water,  there  may  be  both:  no  one  knows.  It 
would  be  presumptuous  for  any  scientist  to  lay 
down  the  law  in  the  matter. 

In  view  of  all  these  facts  it  becomes  certain  that 
Cook  must  have  written  his  description  of  the 
North  Pole  from  his  own  observations.  For  until 
Cook  actually  traversed  the  Western  Arctic  be- 
tween 88°  N.,  and  the  North  Pole,  and  told  the 
world  the  facts,  no  one  could  have  said  whether  in 
that  area  there  was  land  or  sea,  nor  have  stated 
anything  of  the  conditions  of  its  ice,  with  its  un- 
usual, perhaps  unique,  flat  surface.  But  Cook  in 
his  first  cablegram  stated  definitely,  positively,  and 
finally  that  at  the  North  Pole  there  was  no  land, 
but  sea  frozen  over  into  smooth  ice,  and  Peary  con- 
firmed Cook's  statements.  Cook  was  accurate,  and 
the  only  possible  inference  is  that  Cook  was  accu- 
rate because  Cook  knew,  and  the  further  inevitable 
conclusion  is  that  since  Cook  knew,  Cook  had  been 
at  the  North  Pole. 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  73 


VIII. 

ANIMALS  ON  THE  ARCTIC  OCEAN  ICE. 

There  is  another  Arctic  problem  also  which, 
as  a  result  of  some  observations  of  Admiral 
Peary  on  his  1909  trip,  has  been  placed  be- 
fore the  scientific  world  for  solution.  This  prob- 
lem is  zoological,  and  may  have  some  bearing 
as  evidence  on  Cook's  discoveries  and  Harris' 
theory.  Just  below  86°  N.,  Peary  records  that 
''While  we  were  engaged  in  this  business  we 
saw  a  seal  disporting  himself  in  the  open  water 
of  the  lead."''  And  again  in  about  86°  20'  N., 
he  states:  ''Along  the  course  of  one  of  these 
leads  we  saw  the  fresh  track  of  a  polar  bear 
going  west,  over  two  hundred  miles  from  land."'^ 
Close  to  87°  N.,  he  says  that:  ''During  the  day  we 
saw  the  tracks  of  two  foxes  in  this  remote  and 
icy  wilderness,  nearly  two  hundred  and  forty 
nautical  miles  beyond  the  northern  coast  of 
Grant  Land."'^  And  again  at  some  spot  not  far 
from  88°  N.,  Peary  observed:  "Here  we  noticed 
some  fox  tracks  that  had  just  been  made.  The 
animal  was  probably  disturbed  by  our  approach. 

7^  The  North  Pole,  page  250. 
^2  The  North  Pole,  page  252. 
^^The  North  Pole,  page  257. 


74  THE    NORTH   POLE 

These  are  the  most  northern  animal  tracks  ever 
seen."^* 

Can  anything  be  deduced  from  these  animal 
tracks,  and  if  so,  what?  Do  they  mean  that  there 
is  land  near  to  where  they  were  seen?  Or  do 
they  mean  that  Arctic  animals  roam  over  the 
Arctic  ocean  to  points  farther  away  from  land  than 
has  been  believed?  There  were  certainly  fewer 
evidences  of  animal  life  noticed  on  the  drift 
of  the  Fram  when  she  was  farthest  away  from 
known  lands.  It  is  generally  supposed  that,  as 
noted  by  Baldwin,  Arctic  animals,  in  their  search 
for  food,  stay  near  land.  Seals  feed  principally 
on  shrimps,  which  they  find  in  shallow  waters. 
Bears  eat  mainly  seals,  which  live  along  coastal 
lands.  Foxes  subsist  on  the  refuse  left  by  bears 
and  also  on  Arctic  hares  which,  feeding  on  vege- 
tation, live  wholly  on  land. 

It  seems  almost  inconceivable  that  a  polar  bear 
should  be  over  two  hundred  miles  from  (Grant) 
land,  foxes  two  hundred  and  forty  miles  from 
(Grant)  land,  and  one  fox  even  three  hundred 
miles  from  (Grant)  land.  These  animals  were 
not  interested  in  the  North  Pole:  why  should 
they  go  where  there  was  nothing  to  eat?  It  would 
seem  as  tho  these  signs  of  animal  life,  in  them- 
selves alone,  prove  almost  to  a  certainty  that  there 

''^The  North  Pole,  page  307. 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  75 

is  land  north  of  Crocker  Land  and  Grant  Land: 
that  there  is  some  land  in  the  neighborhood  of 
those  tracks  where  these  animals  had  their  habitat. 

Of  such  an  habitat  there  are  three  possibilities. 
One  is  Bradley  Land,  which  may  perchance  extend 
to  the  eighty-sixth  parallel  or  even  farther.  An- 
other is  an  island  west  of  Cook-Land-Ice.  A 
third  is  an  island  beyond  87°  N.,  to  the  east  of 
Peary's  route  of  1909.  For  of  the  region  between 
87°  N.-89°  N.,  and  40°  W.-0°,  that  is  of  the 
region  east  and  northeast  of  the  fox  tracks  seen 
by  Peary,  nothing  whatever  is  known.  It  must 
be  added,  however,  that  the  drift  of  the  ice,  as 
observed  in  the  Spitzbergen  seas  from  Parry  in 
1827^^  onwards,  is  strong  evidence  against  the  last 
possibility. 

In  the  fox  tracks  near  87°  N.,  and  88°  N.,  espe- 
cially, there  is  certainly  a  strong  presumption  of 
actual  land  rising  in  the  Arctic  not  far  to  the  west 
of  Cook-Land-Ice,  or  not  far  to  the  east  of  Peary's 
route.  If  there  is  such  land,  say  in  110°  W.,  or  in 
40°  W.,  the  fox  in  88°  N.,  was  about  100  miles 
from  possible  land,  about  180  miles  from  Brad- 
ley Land,  and  about  300  miles  from  Grant  Land; 
the  foxes  in  87°  N.,  were  about  130  miles  from 
possible  land,  about  150  miles  from  Bradley  Land, 
and  about  240  miles  from  Grant  Land;    the  bear 

''^Narrative  of  an  Attempt  to  Reach  the  North  Pole,  1828. 


76  THE   NOKTH   POLE 

in  86°  20'  N.,  was  about  140  miles  from  possible 
land,  about  130  miles  from  Bradley  Land,  and 
about  200  miles  from  Grant  Land. 

It  is  certainly  more  likely  that  these  animals 
came  from  Bradley  Land  than  from  Grant  Land, 
and  if  lands  exist  beyond  Cook-Land-Ice  or  east 
of  Peary's  track,  still  more  likely  that  the  foxes 
came  from  there. 

While  there  is  no  absolute  proof  afforded  by 
these  animal  tracks  of  the  existence  of  land  north 
of  Grant  Land  and  Crocker  Land,  there  is  cer- 
tainly strong  presumption  of  it.  And  this  pre- 
sumption tends  towards  corroborating  Cook's 
discoveries  and  Harris'  theory.  But  it  must  be 
added  that  whatever  may  be  the  case  about  such 
lands,  Peary's  observations  show  that  Arctic  ani- 
mals wander  farther  from  land  than  they  were 
formerly  supposed  to. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Peary's  discovery 
of  Crocker  Land,  of  a  possible  shoal  at  Peary- 
Land-Ice,  and  of  a  submarine  ridge  in  310  fathoms 
just  south  of  86°  N.,  and  Cook's  discovery  of 
Bradley  Land  and  of  a  possible  shoal  at  Cook- 
Land-Ice,  prove  that  the  northern  reaches  of 
the  known  Western  Arctic  are  neither  wholly 
sea  nor  wholly  land,  but  that  they  are  an  icy  sea 
interspersed  with  some  islands  and  possibly  with 
some  shoals  or  banks.  The  observations  of  both 
explorers,  therefore,  validate,  in  regard  to  much 


AND   BRADLEY   LAND.  77 

of  the  Western  Arctic,  Harris'  theory.  But  their 
observations  shed  no  light  on  the  vast  unexplored 
Arctic  area  situated  between  Alaska,  Siberia  and 
the  North  Pole,  and  about  this  Harris'  and  Nan- 
sen's  theories  both  still  hold  the  fort  as  working 
hypotheses. 


78  THE  NORTH  POLE 


IX. 

THE  FUTURE  OF  ARCTIC  EXPLORATION. 

The  final  proofs  of  Cook's  and  Peary's  dis- 
coveries rest  in  the  Arctic  regions.  Either  these 
proofs  exist  or  they  do  not  exist.  Either  they  are 
physical  facts  or  they  are  not  physical  facts.  If 
any  explorer  crosses  anew  the  Polar  expanse,  and 
finds  at  the  North  Pole  smooth  fields  of  level  ice, 
and  an  ocean  deep  beneath,  he  will  make  certain 
the  fact  that  Cook's  and  Peary's  statements  about 
the  North  Pole  are  accurate.  But  it  must  be  noted 
that  this  smooth  ice  at  the  North  Pole  might  change 
in  character.  If  anyone  should  find  Cook-Land- 
Ice  again,  it  will  also  settle  Cook's  claims  afl&rma- 
tively  in  favor  of  Cook.  But  this  likewise  is  an 
uncertain  piece  of  evidence,  for  Cook  himself 
was  uncertain  whether  there  was  land  or  sea 
underneath  Cook-Land-Ice,  and  if  there  is  the 
latter,  Cook-Land-Ice  might  move  away.  Brad- 
ley Land,  fortunately,  is  a  very  different  matter. 
There  is  a  land  extending  over  fifty  geographical 
miles  in  length  and  of  which  Cook  gives  a  photo- 
graph. No  one  but  Cook  has  seen  Bradley  Land. 
No  one  but  Cook  has  been  near  its  position. 
Bradley  Land  is  wholly  a  discovery  or  wholly  an 
invention  of  Cook's.  If  Bradley  Land  is  a  real 
entity,  its  rediscovery  will  settle  absolutely  beyond 


AND  BRADLEY  LAND.  79 

question  the  validity  of  Cook's  claims  as  a  dis- 
coverer. For  it  will  prove  that  Cook's  statements 
about  Bradley  Land  were  based  on  actual  knowl- 
edge, and  this  in  itself  will  verify  Cook's  other 
statements,  and  prove  definitely  that  those  other 
statements  also  were  based  on  actual  knowledge. 

In  view  of  all  the  problems  which  remain  to  be 
solved  in  the  Arctic  regions,  it  is  rousing  news 
to  learn  that  three  expeditions  are  projected, 
which,  it  may  be  hoped,  will  bring  back  a  great 
deal  more  information  on  these  various  problems. 
One  of  these  expeditions  is  the  proposed  trip  of 
Captain  Amundsen,  who  intends  to  sail  thru 
Bering  Strait  in  the  summer  of  1914,  push  the 
Fram  into  the  Arctic  ice  and  let  her  drift  as  the 
forces  of  nature  will  across  the  Arctic  regions. 
The  map  accompanying  Amundsen's  paper  de- 
scribing his  plans  shows  the  drift  from  Bering 
Strait,  according  to  Dr.  Nansen  passing  round  the 
North  Pole  in  the  Eastern  Hemisphere,  according 
to  Professor  Mohn  passing  the  North  Pole — in  the 
region  of  Bradley  Land  and  Cook-Land-Ice — in 
about  87°  N.,  in  the  Western  Hemisphere.^^  While 
no  one  can  foretell  in  the  least  in  which  hemisphere 
the  Fram  may  drift  past  the  North  Pole,  Amund- 
sen   will    probably    bring    back    fresh    knowledge 

^^Roald  Amundsen:  "A  Proposed  North  Polar  Expedition:" 
The  Geographical  J&urnal,  1909,  Vol.  XXXIII.,  pages  400-462. 


80  THE   NOKTH    POLE 

about  the  Central  Arctic  and  further  confirm  or 
set  aside  either  Harris'  or  Nansen's  theory.  If 
the  Fram  passes  at  the  North  Pole,  Amundsen 
will  verify  Cook's  and  Peary's  statements.  If  the 
Fram  passes  between  Grant  Land  and  the  North 
Pole,  Amundsen  may  or  may  not  get  within 
sighting  distance  of  Bradley  Land,  and  may  or 
may  not  tell  us  something  new  of  Cook-Land-Ice. 
But,  whatever  the  results,  everyone  will  wish 
Amundsen  a  safe  and  successful  journey. 

The  second  expedition  is  to  be  led  by  Mr. 
Donald  B.  MacMillan,  who  has  already  made  a 
name  for  himself  as  an  Arctic  traveler  in  the  Peary 
expedition  of  1909.  Mr.  MacMillan  is  to  start 
in  1913,  and  to  follow  as  nearly  as  possible  Cook's 
route  from  Smith  Sound  across  Ellesmere  Land 
and  Oscar  Land  to  the  northern  extremity  of  Axel 
Heiberg  Land.  Thence  the  party  is  to  cross  the 
ice  straight  to  Crocker  Land.  In  the  two  papers 
announcing  the  plans  of  the  expedition,  ^^  the  maps 
accompanying  the  papers  both  locate  Crocker  Land 
correctly  between  82°  30'  N.-83°  20'  N.  Bradley 
Land  is  not  spoken  of  in  either  paper,  nor  is  it 
marked  on  either  map.  But  if  Mr.  MacMillan, 
whose  fine  performance  proves  a  most  capable  trav- 
eler, is  fortunate  enough  to  reach  Crocker  Land — 

'''^Science,  March  15,  1912,  N.  S.  Vol.  XXXV.,  pages  404- 
408.  The  American  Museum  Journal,  May,  1912,  Vol.  XII.: 
map  on  cover. 


AND   BRADLEY  LAND.  81 

and  no  one  can  foretell  what  an  explorer  may  or 
may  not  be  able  to  actually  carry  out  amid  Polar 
dangers — he  will  be  on  the  threshold  of  a  region 
which  still  keeps  many  geographical  secrets.  If  he 
can  push  on  to  84°  N.,  he  may  clear  up  the  mys- 
tery of  the  unknown  sixty  geographical  miles  be- 
yond Crocker  Land  to  the  north  of  83°  20'  N.: 
whether  there  is  continuous  coast  or  ice-sheeted 
water.  If  he  advances  to  beyond  85°  N.,  he  may 
possibly  determine  the  northern  limits  of  land  in 
the  Western  Arctic.  And,  in  either  case,  he  will 
disprove  or  prove,  to  the  satisfaction  of  all  geo- 
graphers, the  existence  of  Bradley  Land.  Let  us 
trust  Mr.  MacMillan  may  reach  Crocker  Land, 
push  on  to  Bradley  Land,  and  return  in  safety 
with  fresh  laurels. 

The  third  expedition,  under  the  command  of  Mr. 
Vilhjalmur  Stefansson,  who  has  recently  returned 
from  a  successful  ethnological  search  round  the 
shores  of  Coronation  Gulf,  is  to  proceed  to  Banks 
Land  and  Prince  Patrick  Island,  and  from  there 
push  west  and  northwest  into  the  unknown  Arctic. 
Since  this  expedition  is  not  to  go  to  the  regions  tra- 
versed by  Cook  and  Peary,  it  will  not  throw  any 
light  on  the  question  of  the  discovery  of  the  North 
Pole,  but  it  may  return  with  much  new  geographi- 
cal and  ethnological  knowledge,  and  it  may  settle 
which  theory,  Harris'  or  Nansen's,  about  the  Cen- 
tral Arctic,  is  correct.     Let  us  wish  Mr.  Stefansson 


82     THE  NORTH  POLE  AND  BRADLEY  LAND. 

as  much  success  on  his  next  journey  as  on  his 
last. 

It  need  not  be  supposed  that  Arctic  exploration 
will  cease  until  all  the  great  secrets  of  the  Arctic 
regions  have  been  revealed.  Physical  geographers 
must  know  how  much  is  ocean  and  how  much  is 
land  round  the  North  Pole.  Glaciologists  must 
know  about  the  strange  ice  formations  of  Cook- 
Land-Ice  and  Peary-Land-Ice.  Ethnologists  must 
know  whether  perchance  there  are  any  inhabitants 
on  the  unexplored  lands  in  the  Western  Arctic. 
Historical  geographers  must  know  who  discovered 
the  North  Pole.  This  latter  question  is  one  of  too 
great  importance  in  the  history  of  exploration  to 
be  laid  aside.  Historical  geographers — men  of  the 
stamp  of  Humboldt  and  Henry  Harrisse  among  the 
dead;  and  of  William  Spiers  Bruce,  Jean  B.  Char- 
cot and  Otto  Nordenskjold  among  the  living — are 
bound  to  keep  it  alive  until  it  is  solved  in  accord- 
ance with  the  facts  and  the  evidence.  This  ques- 
tion may  be  settled  in  our  lifetime,  it  may  only  be 
settled  a  hundred  years  or  two  hundred  years 
hence,  but  it  is  certain  to  be  settled  eventually  by 
the  supreme  court  of  geographical  discovery,  the 
historical  geographers,  who  will  render  a  verdict 
biased  neither  by  partisanship  nor  by  fear  of  ridi- 
cule, but  a  verdict  based  solely  on  the  facts. 


89°N    NORTH  POLE    89°n 


88°N 


87°  N 


86"N 


IOO°W 


SS^W 


90°W 


85°W 


80OW 


750W 


700W 


65«W 


Chart  of  Segment  of  the  Western  Arctic  North  and  North  West  ofGrant  Land 

Drawn  by  EDWIN  SWIFT  BALCH.  December  1912. 


INDEX. 


PAGE 

Abruzzi,  Duke  of  the 9,31 

Abuna  river 24 

African  snowy  mountains , 20,  21 

Alaska 7,  8,  77 

Altamira 23 

Amazon 24 

America 18 

Amund  Rignes  Land 12 

Amundsen,  Captain  Roald 29,  37,  79,  80 

Amundsen's  proposed  expedition 79,  80 

Anacondas . . . , 24 

Animals  on  the  Arctic  Ocean  ice 73-76 

Antarctic  voyagers 18, 19 

Antarctica 18,  67 

Ararat 32 

Armbruster,  Mr.  W.  J 38 

Associated  Press 50 

Astronomical  observations 27, 28,  51 

Astrup,  Mr.  Eivind , 67 

Atlantic  Ocean 13 

Atlantis 17 

Australian  expedition 19 

Axel  Heiberg  Land 9, 12, 43,  48,  49,  80 

Baffin  Bay 12 

Baldwin,  Mr.  Evelyn  B 39,  56,  60,  61,  74 

Baldwin,  Mr.,  essay  by 39 

Balkan  War 35 

Balleny  Islands 66 

Banks  Land 8,  81 

Barth,  Dr.  Heinrich 21 

Bartlett,  Captain  Robert  A 50,  61 

Bering  Strait 60,  79 

Big  Lead 11,  55 

Borchgrevink,  Mr.  C.  E 66 

Borup,  Mr.  George 50 

Bradley  Land. .  12,  42,  43,  45,  46,  47,  48,  49,  50,  53-58,  75,  76,  78,  79,  80,  81 

Bradley  Land :  disbelief  in 57,  58 

Bradley  Land:  discovered  by  Cook 12,  43,  44,  54 

Bradley  Land:  its  extent 54,  55 

Bradley  Land:  proof  of  Cook's  journey 58,  78.  79 

(85) 


86  INDEX. 


Brazilian  Boundary  Commissioners 24 

Bridgman,  Mr.  Herbert  L 60 

Bruce,  James 20 

Bruce,  Dr.  William  Spiers 19, 28, 82 

Cablegram  of  Dr.  Cook 12, 41, 43,  44, 45, 63 

Cablegrams  of  Admiral  Peary 14, 50, 51 

Cagni,  Captain 69,  70,  72 

Cape  Columbia 66 

Cape  Sheridan 13, 40 

Cape  York 13 

Carmack,  Mr.  G.  A 60 

Catlin,  George 23 

Charcot,  Dr.  Jean  B 19,  82 

Charts 67 

Christensen  Island 68 

Cicero 17 

CoUinson,  Captain 7 

Colors,  complementary 63, 64 

Colter,  John 22 

Columbus 18 

Comparative  method,  the  scientific  way  to  prove  the  statements  of 

explorers 36,  37 

Congreve 18 

Conquest  of  The  Pole,  The 41,  46, 46,  47,  48,  53,  63 

Controversy  about  Cook  and  Peary 15, 29,  30 

Cook,  Dr.  Frederick  A passim 

Cook-Land-Ice 12,  42,  44,  47,  53,  55,  59,  60,  61,  62,  75,  76, 78,  80, 82 

Cook's  discoveries  corroborated  by  Peary 37,  51,  54,  65 

Cook's  journey 9, 12,  13,  43 

Cook's  marches 12, 13,  30 

Cook's  original  statements,  importance  of 42,  62 

Cooley,  Mr.  Desborough 21 

Copenhagen 12 

Copenhagen  Committee 35, 36,  38 

Copenhagen  verdict 35, 36 

Coronation  Gulf 81 

Crete,  Minoan 17 

Crocker  Land 11, 40, 54, 65,  75,  76, 80, 81 

Crocker  Land:  its  discovery  by  Peary 10, 11 

Crocker  Land:  its  extent 64,  55 

Crocker  Land:  to  be  explored 80, 81 

Cuttle-fish 24 

Davis,  Captain 68 

DeLong,  Captain 9 


INDEX.  87 

PAGE 

Denmark 42 

Drygalski,  Dr.  E.  v 19,  37,  67 

DuChaillu,  Paul  B 21,  37 

D'Urville,  Admiral  Dumont 18 

EUesmere  Land 80 

Eskimo 10,  30 

Europe 30,  42 

Facts  of  importance  as  evidence  about  discovery  of  North  Pole ...  39, 40 

Farthest  North 70 

Fawcett,  Major  P.  H 24 

Field  of  vision:  only  one  in  which  a  polar  explorer  can  make  definite 

statements 65 

Field  of  vision :  sometimes  extensive 65, 66, 67 

Field  of  vision:  sometimes  restricted 67, 68 

Fram,  the 7, 79, 80 

Franz  Josef  Land 8,  67 

Freshfield,  Mr.  Douglas  W 32 

Fricker,  Dr 18 

Future  of  Arctic  exploration.  The 78-82 

Gerlache,  Captain  Adrien  de 19 

Graham,  Mr.  W.  W 31 

Grant  Land 8,  9, 10, 13,  37,  43,  53,  60,  73,  74,  75,  76,  80 

Great  Ice  Barrier 29 

Greely,  Major  General  Adolphus  W 39,  68 

Greenland 10, 12, 13,  42 

Grosvenor,  Mr.  Gilbert  H 57 

Hans  Egede,  the 13 

Harpocration , 17 

Harris,  Mr.  R.  A 7,  8,  9, 11, 14,  56,  62,  71,  73 

Harris' theory  of  land  in  the  unknown  Arctic,  7,  8,9,11,14,53,  56,  62.  71, 

73,76,77,81 

Harrisse,  Henry 82 

Herald,  New  York 41,  42,  43,  49,  53,  57,  63 

Herodotus 16 

HimMaya 31 

Historical  geographers 15, 82 

Hiillmann,  K.  D 17 

Humboldt,  Alexander  von 82 

Hiuried  visual  observations  reUable  only  for  a  short  distance 68,69 

Impressionism 63,  64 

Indian  Head,  Labrador 14,  50 

Islands  in  the  Arctic,  unknown 56,  60, 62 


88  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Jeannetle,  the 7 

Johnson,  Captain  Robert 18 

Josephus 17 

Kabru,  ascent  of 31 

Keenan,  Captain 7 

Krapf,  Dr 20,  21 

Labrador 42 

Laertius 17 

Land-ices  in  the  Arctic  Ocean 59-62 

Land-ices:  how  they  are  formed 60,  61 

Land-ices :  what  they  mean 62 

Lange,  Mr.  Algot 25 

Larsen  Bay 68 

Larsen,  Captain 68 

Lerwick,  Shetland  Islands 12,  41,  43 

Lewis  and  Clark 22 

Lincoln,  Abraham 22 

Livingstone,  David 22 

Love  for  Love 18 

Lucian 17 

MacMillan,  Mr.  Donald  B 37,  50,  80,  81 

MacMillan's  proposed  expedition  to  Crocker  Land 80,  81 

Main,  Mrs 33 

Manetho 17 

Markham,  Admiral  Sir  Albert  H 27 

Markham,  Sir  Clements  R 19 

Marvin,  Professor  Ross  G 13,  50,  55,  56 

Matterhorn,  the 34 

Mawson,  Dr 37,  58 

McClure,  Admiral 7 

McEnery,  Rev.  J 23 

Mischabel  range 34 

Mohn,  Professor 79 

Morrell,  Captain  Benjamin 18 

Mount  Desert 54 

Mount  McKinley 30,  32,  33,  34,  35 

Mount  McKinley:  its  ascent  unprovable 30 

Mount  McKinley:  its  ascent  irrelevant  as  evidence 30,  35 

Mount  Washington 31 

Mountain  ascents:  non  value  of  native  opinion  about  them 32,  33 

Mountain  ascents:  Graham's  ascent  of  Kabru 31 

Mountain  ascents:  difficulty  of  proving 31 

Mountain  tops:  author's  experience 34 

Mountain  tops:  how  they  change 33, 34, 35 


INDEX.  89 


Mountain  tops:  photographs  of 33 

Mountain  tops:  Whymper's  observations 34,  35 

My  Attainment  of  the  Pole 41,  42,  48,  49,  67,  59 

Mylius  Erichsen  Land 68 

Nadelhorn,  the 34 

Nansen,  Dr.  Fridtjof 8,  9, 11, 14,  69,  70,  71,  72,  77,  79 

Nansen's  theory  of  an  ocean  in  the  unknown  Arctic. . .  .8,  9,  53,  71,  77,81 

Nares,  Admiral 27,  39 

National  Geographic  Magazine 57 

Navy  Cliff 67 

Nearest  the  Pole 41,  70 

Newfoundland 24 

New  York  City 26,  27 

Nordenskjold  Land 68 

Nordenskjold,  Dr.  Otto 19,  82 

Osborn,  Captain 7 

Oscar  Land 80 

Ovis  Poli 17 

Palmer,  Captain  Nathaniel  B 18 

Pamirs,  the 17 

Parry,  Admiral 75 

Payer,  Captain  Julius 32,  67 

Peary,  Rear- Admiral  Robert  E passim 

Peary,  Mrs.  R.  E 51 

Peary -Land-Ice 10, 11,  59,  60,  61,  62,  82 

Peary's  journey  of  1906 9, 10, 11,  43 

Peary's  journey  of  1909 9, 13,  43,  75 

Peary's  marches 13,  65 

Perthes,  Boucher  de 23 

Peter  Island 62 

Petermann,  Dr , 21 

Philadelphia 26,  27 

Phenician  Sailors 16 

Pinto,  Fernao  Mendes 18 

Plato 17 

Pleistokene  paintings 23 

Pole,  The  North 62-73  and  passim 

Pole,  The  North:  for  a  traveler  a  locality 26,  27 

Pole,  The  North:  first  described  by  Dr.  Cook 52,  65 

Pole,  The  North:  ice  at 53,  63, 65,  70,  71,  78 

Pole,  The  North :  Peary  a  close  second  at 25 

Pole,  The  North:  proof  of  Cook's  discovery  of 65,  72,  78 

Pole,  The  North:    resemblance  between  discoveries  of  South  Pole 
and  North  Pole 28, 29 


90  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Pole,  The  North :    its  discovery  by  Cook 16, 25, 29 

Pole,  The  South 28 

Polo,  Marco 17, 37 

Presanella,  the 32 

Primary  pigments 63 

Prince  Patrick  Island 81 

Problems  of  the  Arctic 14, 55,  62,  73,  79 

Purple  snows 45,  48,  63,  64 

Rebmann,  Dr 20,  21 

Records  of  Dr.  Cook 41,  42,  43,  44,  45,  46,  47,  48, 49,  50,  51,  52 

Records  of  Admiral  Peary 41,  50,  51 

Richardson,  Sir  John 7 

Rigi,  the 31 

Ringgold,  Commander  Cadwalader 66 

Ross,  Sir  James  Clark 66,  67 

Sautuola,  Don  Marcelino  de 23,  24 

Schley,  Rear  Admiral  W.  S 38 

Schweinfurth,  Dr 37 

Scott,  Captain  Robert  Falcon 29 

Shoals  in  the  Arctic 11,  60,  76 

Siberia 8,  77 

Siberian  islands 8 

Smith,  Dr.  Donaldson 37 

Smith  Sound 80 

Somes  Sound 54 

Soundings:  by  Marvin 55,  56 

Soundings:  by  Bartlett 61 

Soundings:  by  Peary 61 

South  Victoria  Land 66 

Spain 23 

Spitzbergen 8,  60,  75 

Stanley,  Henry  M 22,  37 

Stefansson,  Mr.  Vilhjalmm* 81 

Stefansson's  coming  expedition 81 

Stokes,  Mr.  Frank  Wilbert 63 

Sverdrup,  Captain  Otto 7, 39 

Termination  Land 67 

The  North  Pole 50,  53,  57 

Theopompus 17 

Travelers  who  were  first  doubted  and  afterwards  vindicated 15-25 

University  of  Copenhagen 35 

Unknown  Arctic 9, 71, 77 


INDEX.  91 

PAGE 

Verne,  Jules 39 

Vespucci,  Amerigo 17, 18 

WaldseemuUer 18 

Weddell,  Captain  James 19 

West  Antarctica 62 

Weyprecht,  Captain  Karl 67 

Whymper,  Edward 34 

Wilkes,  Admiral  Charles 19,  37,  58,  66,  67 

Wilkes  Land 19,  57,  58 

Yellowstone  geysers 23 

Zermatt 34 


POSTSCRIPTUM. 

The  following  letter,  which  explains  itself,  was 
sent  to  a  number  of  newspapers.  It  is  reprinted 
and  bound  in  with  the  book  to  put  it  on  permanent 
record.  

1505  Spruce  Street, 
Philadelphia,  Pennsylvania, 
November,  1916. 
To  THE  Editor  op  the 

Dear  Sir: 

Permit  me  to  call  your  attention  to  the  following 
facts : — 

In  1913,  I  published,  through  Messrs.  Campion  & 
Co.,  a  book  The  North  Pole  and  Bradley  Land,  which 
I  thought  out,  wrote,  paid  for  and  copyrighted 
myself. 

In  their  notices  about  Dr.  Frederick  A.  Cook, 
The  New  International  Encyclopcedia  (pubhshed  in 
1914)  and  Who's  Who  in  America  (published  in 
1916)  state  that  Dr.  Cook  is  the  author  (with 
myself)  of  this  book  The  North  Pole  and  Bradley 
Land.  THIS  STATEMENT  IS  NOT  TRUE. 
Dr.  Cook  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  book  and 
indeed  never  heard  of  it  until  it  was  already  through 
the  press. 

In  a  letter  to  me,  dated  July  21,  1916,  the  Editor 
of  The  New  International  Encyclopcedia  explains 
their  mistake  as  follows: 


"I  have  just  consulted  the  United  States  catalogue  for 
1913,  page  165,  which  was  probably  the  source  of  our 
compiler's  information.  There  under  Cook's  name  is 
given  your  book  and  then  one  by  him.  The  latter  does  not 
repeat  Cook's  name,  and  while  a  compiler  who  is  familiar 
with  that  publication  ought  to  have  known  that  it  did 
not  mean  that  Cook  and  you  collaborated,  it  is  probable 
that  he  misread  the  items  just  as  the  Who's  Who  compiler 
did.  In  his  absence  I  cannot  trace  the  origin  of  this 
serious  error,  but  the  above,  perhaps,  is  an  explanation 
of  it. 

"  Very  truly  yours, 

(Signed)     "F.  M.  COLBY." 

A  letter  to  me,  dated  June  30,  1916,  from  A.  N. 
Marquis  &  Co.,  publishers  oi  Who's  Who  in  America, 
explains  their  mistake  as  follows: 

"We  were  surprised,  of  course,  to  find  that  a  mistake 
had  been  made  in  the  sketch  of  Frederick  Albert  Cook. 
We  have  gone  to  some  pains  to  have  this  matter  looked 
up  and  find  that  the  error  is  chargeable  solely  to  this  ofl&ce. 

"The  item  was  secured,  it  seems,  at  the  last  moment, 
from  the  United  States  Catalogue  and  was  used  under  a 
misapprehension  as  to  its  exact  meaning.  It  now  appears 
that  Dr.  Cook  could  not  be  reached  at  the  time.  He  was 
out  of  the  country  we  believe,  and  while  it  is  against  the 
policy  of  Who's  Who  in  America  to  publish  a  sketch 
without  submitting  it  for  revision,  the  rule  was  broken  in 
this  case. 

"As  a  consequence  the  embarrassing  mistake  to  which 
you  have  called  attention  resulted.  Of  course,  nothing 
can  be  done  in  the  way  of  rectifying  the  mistake  until 
another  edition  of  Who's  Who  in  America  is  to  be  printed, 
and  we  can  assure  you  it  will  have  as  prompt  attention  as 
possible. 

"Very  truly  yours, 

(Signed)     "A.  N.  MARQUIS  &  COMPANY." 


It  is  certainly  surprising  that  publications  like 
The  New  International  Encyclopwdia  and  Who's 
Who  in  America,  which  are  publicly  presumed  to 
be  accurate,  should  make  such  a  mistake.  But  as 
it  will  be  some  time  before  the  new  editions  of  these 
publications  appear  in  which  the  respective  editors 
promise  to  correct  this  mistake,  I  am  sending  out 
this  letter  to  prevent,  as  far  as  possible,  this  untruth 
from  spreading  further. 

Yours  very  truly, 

EDWIN  SWIFT  BALCH. 


w.f.  ef  JJtV/''^  O^  25  CENTS 

WILL  .NCREASE  TO  SO  ^T.  ^^  PENALTY 

°AV     AND     TO    ».  OO     ON      "      "X"^  ''°"''™ 
OVERDUE.  THE    SEVENTH     DAY 


369545 


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